CONFAB Wants defecting govs, senators, others to lose seats

The National Conference resolved that henceforth, any elected public office holder in the country who defected from his or her political party to another would automatically lose the seat. Delegates at the conference also adopted the recommendation of the Committee on Politics and Governance that Nigeria should adopt a true federal structure with the states operating as the federating units. Accordingly, the conference proposed stiff penalties for elected public office holders who move from one political party to another before the expiration of their mandates. It said such elected public office holders who abandoned their parties midway for new ones were to lose their seats. On practice of true federalism, it was agreed that the creation of local government areas be done by the states, as they deem necessary. However, decision on establishment of the structure, composition, finance and functions of local government councils were put on hold pending discussions on the Report of the Committee on Political Restructuring. On right to self-determination, the conference agreed that the minority groups that wished to exist as separate states and meet the criteria for state creation should be allowed to do so under the instrumentality of the relevant laws and procedures as part of their rights to internal self- determination. The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) and the State Independent Electoral Commission (SIEC) are to fashion ways to ensure that physically challenged persons, especially lepers, are registered and actually vote in elections. These were parts of the recommendations adopted by the conference during the debate and consideration of the Report of the Committee on Politics and Governance, headed by Professor Jerry Gana, with Chief Olu Falae as the co-chairman. The conference also accepted the proposal that the government should not fund any political party, but that they should be funded through membership subscription, levies, donations, investments, sales of party cards and other fund raising activities. The proposal that unelected chairmen of local governments, often referred to as tTransition committee chairmen or such unelected representatives at the local government areas should be sanctioned by withholding the statutory allocations pending the conduct of elections into such local governments was also accepted by the conference.