Dr Tunji Braithwaite Walked Out Of The National Conference Hall By The SSS For Failure To Put On His Tag

Founder of Nigeria Advance Party, NAP and a member of the ongoing national conference, Dr. Tunji Braithwaite, was yesterday led out of the venue of the conference by officers of the State Security Service, SSS, for not putting on his tag.

When earlier accosted at the entrance of the hall, a Braithwaite asked the officers whether they did not know him personally to which they responded negative.

But the elder statesman entered the hall despite not being cleared. About ten minutes later, two SSS officers walked to his seat and demanded that he put on his identification or walk out.

They pointed out to him that their request was appropriate as other delegates had on their tags.

However, Braithwaite insistence forced the operatives to usher him out, saying that he must go and pick his tag from the Secretariat.

The security officials added that it was the instruction from the Secretariat that delegates and others must put on their tags while the session was on.

It would be recalled that Chairman of the conference, Justice Idris Kutigi, had last week directed all delegates to put on their tags to avoid embarrassment from the security operatives.

In an interview with newsmen later, Braithwaite, who admitted being accosted by the security agents, stated that he was not bundled out of the hall.

Speaking further, he said that the report of the conference could not be subjected to the approval of the National Assembly and if that was the intention of the Federal Government, he would pull out of the conference.

He said that the best thing was to subject the report of the ongoing conference to the approval of the people of Nigeria through a referendum as proposed by President Goodluck Jonathan.

"I was not here during the presidential inauguration speech and I have not read the speech, but this is the conference that is supposed to represent the ethnic nationalities of the country.

"The National Assembly having to rectify the report would make nonsense of the deliberation. If the report has to be rectified by the NASS, I would opt out of this conference. Government derives legitimacy from the sovereignty of the people not the other way round.

"So, to say that the National Assembly has to rectify the conference report is wrong. The President is a man of destiny because he happens to be there at this point in time. This conference would have come up in any event.

"We said it several times that if government did not convoke the conference, people would convoke the conference on their own."