Like the Uwais committee, the 492 delegates of the 2014 Confab, made about 683 recommendations all arrived at by consensus – which was unique.

Chaired by Justice Idris Kutigi, with Professor Bolaji Akinyemi and his deputy and Dr. Valerie Azinge as secretary, the Confab started sitting on March 17, 2014.

Creation of 18 new states

One of the key recommendations of the 2014 Confab was the creation of 18 new states (three per geo-political zone) and one new state for the South East to make the zone have equal number of states with the other zones except the North-West which has seven. It also recommended that states willing to merge can do so based on certain conditions.

Revenue Allocation

The Confab recommended that the sharing of the funds to the Federation Account among the three tiers of government should be done in the following manner: Federal Government – 42.5%, State Governments – 35% and Local Governments 22.5%.

Forms of Government

It recommended a Modified Presidential System that effectively combines the presidential and parliamentary systems of government. The president shall pick the vice president from the Legislature.
The President should select not more than 18 ministers from the six geo -political zones and not more than 30% of his ministers from outside the Legislature. Reduce the cost of governance by pruning the number of political appointees and using staff of ministries where necessary.

Part-time Legislature

The Confab retained the Bi-cameral legislature but suggested that all elected members of the legislative arms of all the tiers of government should serve on a part-time basis

Power sharing/rotation

To reduce tension generated by politicians’ struggle for power, it recommended that presidential power should rotate between the North and the South and among the six geo-political zones while the governorship will rotate among the three senatorial districts in a state.

Immunity Clause

The immunity clause should be removed if the offences attract criminal charges to encourage accountability by those managing the economy.

Anti-corruption

It recommended the establishment of special courts to handle corruption cases in the light of undue prolongation in the trials and prosecution of corruption cases in the regular courts.

Religion

The Conference recommended that the government sponsor Christian and Muslim pilgrimages and that churches and mosques should begin to pay tax to the government.
their respective regions and then, pay taxes and royalties to the Federal Government, the committee proposed amending Section One of the Allocation of Revenue Federal Act to reflect this reality. It also proposed an amendment to Section 40 to the Value Added Tax Act.

Citizenship

The committee recommended that local government or state of origin should be replaced with a state of residence as the current system is “discriminatory.”
It proposed an amendment to the Federal Character Commission Act to allow people domiciled in a place to be considered as indigenes,

Referendum

The committee noted that there is no provision for a referendum in the constitution except for the creation of the state. It said that having a referendum in the Constitution will be a panacea to some of the agitations in the country, especially the agitation for the Republic of Biafra as championed by the Indigenous People of Biafra, IPOB. It recommended a constitutional amendment to enable a referendum to be undertaken on national issues.

State police

The committee recommended that state police should be moved from the Exclusive List to the Concurrent List and that Police should be both federal and state.

Six years later, the APC-led Federal Government is yet to act on the El-Rufai committee’s report. Rather, some of its policies like LG autonomy were contrary to the report.

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