The delegates to the National Conference holding in Nigeria re-convened on Monday in Abuja to continue deliberations on the way forward for the country.
The 492-delegate National Conference was inaugurated in Abuja by President Goodluck Jonathan with the delegates urged to eschew ethnic interest and pursue genuine national unity among Nigerians.
President Jonthan also stressed that the conference would be a positive turning point for Nigeria’s development.
The delegates took a break after the inauguration to attend to administration issue before the conference would kick off.
Deliberations at the conference will last for three months and members are free to discuss all issues except the indivisibility of Nigeria.
The conference chairman is Justice Idris Kutigi and his deputy is Professor Bolaji Akinyemi.
On Channels Television’s ‘News at Ten’ on Sunday, a solicitor to the Supreme Court, Mr Osahon Ihenhen, said that some of the issues he expected the conference to discuss would be Fiscal Federalism and how to tackle corruption in Nigeria.
He, however, expressed worries that the delegates had been asked not to talk about whether Nigerians should stay together or not, a topic that had been tagged ‘a no go area’.
On the demand by a group for more representation for Nigerian youths, Mr Ihenhen said that “the Nigerian youth today is not well equipped to discuss Nigeria’s problem because there are older people who are more educated, pointing out that if it were years ago where younger persons were ministers it would have been necessary to have more youths.
“I think the best thing to do is to have a mixture,” he said.
