Presidency denies existence of confab committee’sminority report

The Presidency has described as incorrect and
untrue an allegation by the President of the Nigerian
Bar Association, Mr. Okey Wali, on Wednesday in
Abuja that President Goodluck Jonathan refused to
receive a minority report of the Presidential
Advisory Committee on the proposed national
conference.

Special Adviser to the President on Media and
Publicity, Dr. Reuben Abati, made the Presidency’s
position known in a statement on Thursday.
Abati said Jonathan was unaware of the existence
of a minority report supposedly prepared by a
member of the committee, Chief Solomon Asemota.
He said it was also a verifiable fact that Asemota
himself was present at the submission of the
committee’s report to the President on December
18, 2013 when the Chairman, Senator Femi
Okurounmu, made it clear that there was no
minority report.
The statement quoted Okurounmu as having said,
“Before concluding my address, Mr. President, I
want to make one or two comments about some
newspaper reports to the effect that there is a
minority report of our Committee. We have so far
refrained from commenting on these reports
because we consider it politically indiscreet and a
grave violation of protocol for anyone to be
commenting on a report that is yet to be formally
submitted. Now that our report is before you, Mr.
President, I say quite emphatically, that we have no
minority report.”
He added that as everyone, including
representatives of the media who were present on
the occasion would attest, Asemota raised no
objection to the foregoing comments by Okurounmu
and made no effort whatsoever to present any
dissenting minority report to the President.
The statement read in part, “There was therefore
never any issue of President Jonathan refusing to
receive such a minority report from Chief Asemota
and the Presidency is completely unaware of any
factual basis for the claim by the NBA President to
that effect.
“Mr. Wali’s castigation of President Jonathan’s
purported rejection of a minority report is
consequently unfair, based as it is, on a wrong
premise. President Jonathan did not at any time
interfere in the deliberations of the Presidential
Advisory Committee on the National Conference and
he had no reason to reject a minority report, if it
exists and was ever offered to him.
“The Presidency would like to reassure the NBA
that this administration is guided in all instances by
democratic principles; the idea of a National
Conference being in itself a loud evidence in this
regard.
“We invite the Nigeria Bar Association and other
professional bodies to support the administration’s
efforts to strengthen our democratic process.
Criticisms of such efforts can only be useful when
they are constructive and based on facts.”