Olusegun Osoba
Elder statesman and former governor of Ogun State, Mr Olusegun Osoba, says the President does not have the powers to convene such a national conference.
Osoba stated this during a recent interview on Channels Television’s Newsnight which aired on Monday.
The elder Statesman however noted, “I am for restructuring. As long as we have a Constitution, we can only restructure within the current Constitution, as imperfect as it is first,” he said.
Speaking about the constitution of the national conference, Osoba explained that the President does not have the powers to convene such an event.
Rather, the former governor called on the National Assembly, in collaboration with the State Houses of Assembly to amend the Constitution at the federal and state levels for proper restructuring of the country.
He explained that the move was necessary following the recommendations made by the participants of the 2014 National Conference not adopted by the administration of former President Goodluck Jonathan.
According to Osoba, Jonathan was incapacitated from taking an administrative action because the National Assembly did not act on it.
He said, “The President, in a democracy, has no powers whatsoever to convoke a sovereign national conference. You can convoke a National Conference which we have had so many.”
“I have participated in so many. In 1988/89, I was in the one that drafted the Constitution for the Babangida era. I was in the 2014 National Conference.”
“We submitted (the recommendations from) that conference in 2014. Not even one administrative action did Jonathan take.
“What stopped Jonathan then before leaving office was that the report of that conference sent to the National Assembly, the National Assembly didn’t do anything,” he added.
