FG lashes at critics ‘No hidden agenda on National Conference’

Security of the venue and places where
officials and delegates to the forth-coming
National Conference will be given top priority
by the Federal Government even as it denies
that there is a hidden agenda by the Jonathan
administration. The Federal Government lashed
out at those inputing hidden agenda on the
conference came on a day the oposition All
Progressives Congress (APC) dismissed it as a
Jonathan dialogue given the high number of
delegates to be nominated by the president.
The Special Adviser to the President on Political
Affairs, Alhaji Ahmed Ali Gulak, yesterday,
debunked the allegation of hidden agenda in the
Federal Government’s nomination of 114 of the
492 delegates to the conference who, according
to him, are draw from critical areas of national
interest and security.
“The Federal Government will go the extra mile
to protect the lives of the delegates and the
vital facilities that will be committed to the
business of the National Conference”, the
presidential adviser said while speaking to
Sunday Vanguard on security for conference
members..
”We have directed relevant security agencies
to ensure optimal security of the venues and
accommodation of delegates without disrupting
other activities in Abuja during the period.”
File: A cross section of members of the
Presidential Advisory Committee on the
National Conference during the inauguration of
the Committee at the State House, Abuja.
Photo: Abayomi Adeshida.
He said the experience of the 2010 golden
jubilee celebration venue that was bombed
remains fresh “and we are sure that some evil-
minded people would want to embark on such a
risky venture just to truncate the National
Conference, but those who would attempt such
thing would meet their waterloo”.
Gulak added, “Security agencies would be fully
mobilised to frustrate any plot to destabilise
the work of the National Conference when it is
inaugurated by President.Goodluck Ebele
Jonathan”.
On the claim that government has a hidden
agenda in nominating a large number of
delegates, the presidential aide said: “We know
that we have perpetual doubting Thomases and
professional critics who would always smell rat
even when they see a cockroach. The
administration of President Goodluck Jonathan
is working hard to correct this negative
attitude which built up over the years.  We have
come to the point where we must invest trust
in our leaders if we want them to succeed in
actualising our aspirations.
“Those who have raised doubts may mean well
for the country, but they should have basis for
raising such doubts because this government is
not an occupation army,it is not a foreign
sovereign, it is a government that came to
power through the ballot box not through
bullet; it owes its responsibility to the citizens
of Nigeria, we must treat it as our own
government, otherwise, the government and
the people will work at cross purposes to the
delight of those who want the government to
fail.”
Meanwhile, APC said, yesterday, the National
Conference could turn out to be a Jonathan
Conference given the preponderance of
delegates to be nominated by the president.
Alhaji Lai Mohammed, interim national publicity
secretary of the APC said, nonetheless, the
party  will this week decide on whether it would
send delegates to the conference.
Mohammed, at a press briefing in Abuja, also
challenged the President of the Senate,
Senator David Mark, to read the defection
letter submitted to him by 10 senators formerly
of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP.
This week’s meeting of the APC top hierarchy,
he said, would also finalise plans for the party’s
membership registration exercise which is
kicking off on February 5.
15 million party members are expected to be
registered during the exercise to be conducted
in 120,000 polling locations across the country,
the party spokesman said.
Given the modalities rolled out for the
nomination of delegates to the conference,
Mohammed was asked if the APC and its
governors would present delegates. He said:
“I am happy to say that right now, almost all
our fears are being justified and people are
now calling it Jonathan’s conference given the
fact that he alone is nominating about 90
delegates and even those who rallied round it at
the beginning are now seeing what we saw
right from the beginning.
“Our position on the National Conference is
now being vindicated. If you remember, we said
that we did not believe that the convener was
focused and that we were completely worried,
why a convener who all along had been
completely against the idea of a National
Conference would just now turn round and
that the kind of National Conference we
envisage is not the kind of National Conference
that will be ratified by the National Assembly.
“I am happy that what we saw that this thing is
just diversionary is what everybody is saying
now. I wouldn’t want to pre-empt my party,
but the whole thing looks very bizarre even
from the beginning”.