Tempers flared at the National Conference on Thursday as it had to adjourn abruptly following sharp division among delegates on critical issues of revenue sharing formula from the federation account and derivation principle.

Delegates had gathered in plenary for the third day in a row, hoping that a resolution was in the offing on the contentious issues of revenue sharing formula and the derivation principle.

Some of the delegates spoke of their expectation. Delegate of the National Youth Organisation, Abdullahi Abdulmajeed, said, “I am optimistic that that the mind set of statesmen, that patriotic intent, the spirit of give and take and the urge to empathise with each other will prevail and eventually we will be able to move over this issue without having to cast a single ballot.”

Another delegate, Adenike Akande, said, “18% I think is reasonable. The status quo was supposed to be 13% so I’m expecting that the 18% would go through today.”

Emotions, however, ran high as delegates exchanged words in anger over the issues and the inability of the conference to agree on the immediate functions of a proposed National Intervention Fund.

The conference adjourned for an hour to try to resolve the impasse and the break allowed some delegates to speak candidly to each other and when conference resumed, some other amendments were taken as the house waited for the committee to return with an agreement.

When they eventually came in, it was obvious that all was not resolved; this led to another break in proceeding.

The Conference had to adjourn for the day when it became obvious that an agreement would not be reached.

It became clear that there would be different meetings between different groups of delegates over the weekend. What is not clear is if these issues would be resolved or this would be the end of the road for the conference.