The presidency has debunked the statement credited to the National President of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA), Mr. Okey Wali (SAN) yesterday in Abuja that President Goodluck Jonathan refused to accept a minority report of the Presidential Advisory Committee on the proposed national conference, saying the allegation is untrue and incorrect.
In a statement signed by Reuben Abati, Special Adviser to the President on Media and Publicity on Thursday, the presidency stressed that President Jonathan is unaware of the existence of a minority report supposedly prepared by a member of the committee, Mr. Solomon Asemota (SAN).
The statement read thus:
“It is also a verifiable fact that Chief 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 spoke as follows in his address to President Jonathan:
‘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’, the statement quoted.
It added that “As everyone, including representatives of the media who were present at the occasion will attest, Chief Asemota raised no objection to the foregoing comments by Senator Okurounmu and made no effort whatsoever to present any dissenting minority report to the President.
“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”.
While reassuring the NBA of the present administration’s resolve to abide by democratic principles, of which the idea of a National Conference is evidence in that aspect, the presidency called on the association and other professional bodies to support the Goodluck Jonathan administration’s efforts to strengthen the democratic process, adding that “Criticisms of such efforts can only be useful when they are constructive and based on facts”.
