N/Assembly Can't Order Convocation of Confab - Yakassai
From Chuks Okocha in Abuja
Mallam Tanko Yakassai yesterday said the National Assembly has no constitutional mandate to order the convocation of a Sovereign National Conference (SNC).
Yakassai, who said the aim of the advocates of SNC was to make the minority ethnic groups in the country displace the majority ethnic groups, also said the presidency should go to the North by 2007.
Speaking to THISDAY shortly before the public presentation of his memoir, Tanko Yakassai: The Story of a Humble Life, he said that the National Assembly has the powers to initiate changes in the country's constitution, but cannot on its own unilaterally change the constitution.
He pointed out that there is no provision in the constitution for the National Assembly to surrender its power to anybody to convene a Sovereign National Conference.
Asked if he was in support of the SNC, Yakassai said, "I am against the convocation of SNC because it is my friend, Anthony Enahoro, who wanted to turn minority into majority through the convocation of the conference."
He asked how minority ethnic nationalities will sit at the conference on equal basis with the majority tribes like the Hausa, Igbo, and Yoruba.
"We have over 300 ethnic nationalities. How can Miango (an ethnic tribe), who are confined to one local government, have the same representation with Igbo, same representation with Yoruba, same representation with Hausa.
"It is the thinking of Enahoro to turn minority into majority, by putting the minority groups against Hausa man, Igbo man, one Yoruba man, then the minority become majority. I won't support it," he said.
Yakassai said that there is no place in the world where the national conference has succeeded, adding that he would never be party to any plan "to divide Nigeria."
On the raging controversy over which of the geo-political zones should produce the president in 2007, Yakassai was emphatic that the North should be given the slot.
"Power will go across the Niger to the North because that was the decision of the PDP, which is the major party."
When reminded that President Olusegun Obasanjo said that the presidential slot of PDP is yet to be zoned, Yakassai said: "...it is Obasanjo who is saying that. It is his personal view. The spokesman who can be held accountable for the PDP is the secretary, the secretary said it has been zoned, so Obasanjo is an individual and member of the party. He is the president of Nigeria, if he says the government will do this, yes that is final, but if he says the PDP will do this, it is not final. He is not competent to decide."
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