Why northern leaders oppose confab report –Waku

Few days after the Arewa Consultative Forum (ACF) stated its opposition to calls by individuals and groups for the implementation of the 2014 National Conference Report, one of its member, Senator Joseph Waku, offered clarification about the reservation expressed by the forum.

Calls for a revisit of the confab report has gained crescendo in the agitation for restructuring of the country, but the northern lobbying group, in its communiqué issued at the end of its National Executive Council (NEC) meeting in Kaduna on Monday, July 10, 2017, referred to such calls as morally preposterous and anti-democratic.

 The statement signed by ACF National Publicity Secretary, Muhammad Ibrahim Biu, claimed North’s opposition to the implementation of the recommendations of the confab report stemmed majorly from its perception that the region was disadvantaged in terms of the number of its delegates that participated at the conference relative to its large population. The group also cited contentious issues, such as the abolishment of local government councils and the creation of 18 additional states, which it observed, were not properly resolved.

 Waku who spoke to Saturday Sun via telephone interview clarified further: “We are not against the confab report. The Arewa Consultative Forum is not against the implementation of the confab report.  Our position is that certain recommendations are useful, and should be put through the due process by going through legislation.”

Groups who seek implementation of certain parts of the report, Waku explained, should push their agenda through a proper legislative process. “They have representatives, let them make that as a private bill,” he said.

Call for wholesale implementation of the report is out of place, according to Waku who reinforced ACF’s position on the legality of the confab. “In the first place, it was an illegal assembly, it has no constitutional backing,” he said.