Bickering Over Ongoing Constitution Amendment: Who Blinks First?

At all costs,  I resisted the temptation of flowing another topic on today’s edition rather than the back and forth between the state governors through their proxy, the state houses of assembly and the National Assembly over the ongoing amendment to the 1999 Constitution (as amended). The topic suffered a necessary delay last week due to my fancy for the sentencing of a former adviser to the immediate-past US president, Donald Trump, Steve Bannon, for contempt of Congress after defying a subpoena from the House Committee investigating the January 6, 2021, Capitol attack.

My immediate reaction to the imbroglio when it was brought to the public was that the major priority of President Muhammadu Buhari and by extension the National Assembly in the ongoing amendment is an area governors have for some reason protected very jealously and are not willing to let go of. Even the outgoing governors are confident of installing their ‘puppets’ and for that reason are still very interested in the ‘goldmine’.  Yes, it is a contentious bill of autonomy for the local government areas.

If anyone is still in doubt as to whether the governors have enough power to stall the move towards granting autonomy to the local government areas in the states houses of assembly, let me remind such an individual that even a bill meant to grant autonomy to the legislative arm of government at the state levels failed to pass in many of the states’ parliament in 2017, the bill seeking autonomy for local government areas also suffered the same fate, therefore, my dear readers are free to make anything out of this poser.

Be that as it may, I wasn’t in any way surprised when the deputy president and the Senate and the co-chairman of the National Assembly’s joint committee on the review of the 1999 Constitution (as amended), Ovie Omo-Agege called a press conference to allege that state governors were holding the entire process to ransom to truncate it, invariably.

The 44 bills approved by the National Assembly were thereafter transmitted to the state houses of assembly through the Clerk to the National Assembly, Mr Amos Olatunde Ojo, on March 29, 2022, for approval in line with Section 9 (2) stipulations of the nation’s constitution.

But Omo-Agege while briefing parliamentary correspondents a forthright ago alleged that the state governors were using their states’ lawmakers to stall the process.

He noted with concern that the Conference of Nigeria Speakers had vowed not to pass the 44 Constitution Review Bills transmitted to them by the National Assembly until four bills, which they had earlier proposed to the National Assembly were considered and passed.

According to him, six months after the transmission of the bills to state assemblies, it is most disheartening to inform you that only 11 state houses of assembly have demonstrated their independence and loyalty to the. Constitution regarding the 44 bills.

“More worrisome is that while we are still expecting the receipt of the resolutions of the remaining houses of assembly, we received a letter from the Conference of Speakers of State Assemblies informing the National Assembly that the remaining states will not act on the 44 bills unless the National Assembly passes four new bills they have proposed in the letter.

“The bills they proposed, seek to amend the Constitution to Establish State Police; Establish State Judicial Council; Streamline the procedure for removing Presiding Officers of State Houses of Assembly; and, Institutionalise Legislative Bureaucracy in the Constitution.”

“However, it is legally inappropriate for the Conference of Speakers to use the four bills as a quid pro quo to act on the 44 bills that the National Assembly transmitted.

“It is clear, and we cannot overstate, that this letter is not in keeping with the obligation the Constitution has placed on them regarding the Constitutional amendment.”

Meanwhile, the chairman of Bauchi State House of Assembly, Hon Abubakar Suleiman who is chairman of the Conference of Speakers of State Legislatures of Nigeria (CSSLN) in a sharp response to the allegations said that state legislatures would never truncate the exercise. Suleiman observed that primary elections conducted by political parties were one of the reasons for the delay.

While speaking to the major contentious issue of the 4 bills demanded by the state legislators, Sulaiman said,  “What we raised in our letter as highlighted by the Deputy Senate President were same issues we have consistently raised in many fora of our engagements with the two committees on Constitution Review of the National Assembly long before the transmission of the resolutions of the National Assembly to the State Houses of Assembly.

“As major stakeholders in the constitution alteration exercise and the representatives of the people at the grassroots, we are by far in a better position to know the basic and pressing needs of the people.

“Hence, our appeal for the inclusion of the bill. For instance, the issue of insecurity should agitate any conscientious leaders. So we believe this should be tackled frontally by the government.”

“And the best way and the most generally accepted way to curb the menace, we believe, are by providing for state policing in the constitution. Sadly, the proposed amendment was missing in the resolutions transmitted by the National Assembly to the State Houses of Assembly.”

If the information by the Hon Suleiman is anything to believe, I find it very disrespectful that the National Assembly would brush aside the concerns of state assemblies simply because they have no constitutional right to make proposals in the process. Constitution amendment is a political process and every politician is about interest.

Although the gladiator can still reach a compromise within the limited time left in the life of the 9th National Assembly, it is intrusive to state that either the National Assembly or the state houses of assembly must shift grounds to ensure that the process is concluded, the question is who blinks first?