Confab delegates insist on right to pick committee chairmen

I consider this ongoing confab a waste of time and resources imagine..........
Some delegates at the ongoing National
Conference have protested the decision of
their principal officers to withdraw the power
of committee members to select their
chairmen and deputies.
Addressing newsmen before the plenary on
Thursday, Mr Abdulwaheed Omar, the
Spokesperson for the aggrieved delegates, said
thwarting a decision already agreed by
delegates was not acceptable.
He said, “We are protesting against something
that is being brought through the back door;
the decision for the committee to select their
chairmen and deputies at the committee level .
“This decision was concluded by delegates at
the plenary, only for it to resurface through
the Committee of 50, who are only mandated
to talk about the voting pattern.
“The leadership of the conference is using the
Committee of 50 to come up with something
they were not originally mandated to discuss
and we are saying this is the beginning of a
dangerous pattern.”
Omar declared that if the trend was allowed to
continue, there might be such developments in
the course of the conference, which might not
achieve the desired outcome of the
conference.
He said, “We are afraid if we go by this trend,
only God knows what other things will be
manipulated again in the same way.
“We are saying we have to practice democracy
and we are demanding that this decision be
reversed so that we will go back to the popular
decision.
“In 2005, it was the committees that selected
their leaders, why will it be different this
time?”
It would be recalled that on March 20, an
amendment to the Rule was proposed at the
conference that committee members should
select their chairmen and deputy chairmen
from among themselves.
Arguments for and against the proposal were
canvassed by many delegates and when the
conference Chairman, Retired Justice Idris
Kutigi put it into a voice vote, the ‘ayes’ had it.
However, the leadership of the conference, on
Monday, rescinded the power it gave the
delegates to appoint their chairmen and vice
chairmen at the committee level.
This followed a motion by Hon. Muhammed
Kumalia (North-East) that the position taken on
Order XII of the Draft Rules of Procedure be
rescinded.
The Rule had proposed that the Chairman, in
consultation with the Vice-chairman and the
Secretary, should choose the committee
chairmen and secretaries.