By Henry Umoru

Where do you stand on the issue of the voting benchmark?

Well, there is no argument about consensus. Everybody has accepted that. What they have said is that should in case we fail to reach a consensus, what should we use and some people are saying 75 per cent because the President in his speech made mention of 75 per cent.

But others are saying that in other parts of the world, it is 2/3, so that is where the division is.

*Useni

What lessons are we going to learn from this conference?

We learn from our mistakes. Like the last one 2005 where I was a member, and in fact that is where I am going to comment on this chairmanship of committees.

It is true that the chairman can use his discretion and this varies from chairman to chairman. In the 2005 conference which I was a member, the committees were allowed to choose their chairmen. I was chairman of my committee.

The reason why the recommendation of 2005 was dumped was because the voting was aimed at third term, we got to know about the third term and we rejected it and that dampened the spirit of the authority and they didn’t take our suggestions seriously.

This time there is no third term, so we are going to work and we have been given recommendations of those past conferences to look at them and see those ones that have not been implemented and that can still be revived.

What advise would you give the leadership of the conference in the handling of affairs?

Some speakers have already spoken that the leadership should take control of the conference. That if they allow everybody to speak, we would not make progress. And if a thing has been decided upon, you don’t have to go back. Most of us have chaired occasions and if for instance, once a decision has been taken, no matter how good your point is, no more going back, we move forward.

That is the only way we can take control and that is the way they will know that you are serious and you have to think fast. So this is my advice to the chairman to heed to the advice that once a decision has been taken, he should not allow anybody to speak on it again. He should move forward.