Conclude The Constitution Amendment Exercise

After gulping hundreds of millions in naira among other resources of the nation, current work on the amendment of the 1999 constitution spearheaded by the Senator Ovie Omo-Agege-led committee may not be completed before the end of the current National Assembly.

At the last count, only 11 of the 36 state houses of assembly – Abia, Akwa Ibom, Anambra, Delta, Edo, Kaduna, Katsina, Kogi, Lagos, Ogun and Osun – have voted on the constitution amendment bills, while 25 other states have not.

The states that refused to vote insisted that their vote depends on the National Assembly considering four more constitutional amendment bills:  bills to establish of state police and state judicial council, to streamline the procedure for removing presiding officers of state houses of assembly and institutionalise legislative bureaucracy in the constitution.

While the wait for these states to conclude voting continues, Senate President Ahmad Lawan and Speaker of the House of Representatives, Femi Gbajabiamila appealed to governors to allow the state houses of assembly pass the bills.

Specifically, Lawan urged Governor Nasir El-Rufai of Kaduna State to lobby his colleagues, suggesting clearly that the governors are the impediment to the smooth work on the constitution amendment.

Indeed, the current effort to review the constitution is very crucial as the amendment contains a wide range of issues including financial/administrative autonomy for local governments, financial independence for state houses of assembly and state judiciary and a bill to compel persons to obey or comply with legislative summons.

Other intents of the amendment include to exclude the period of intervening events in the computation of time for determining pre-election petitions, election petitions and appeals therefrom; devolution of power to allow states to generate, transmit and distribute electricity in areas covered by the national grid; timeline for presentation of Appropriation bill by president and governors and timeline for president and governors to submit names of ministerial nominees and commissioners.

While some of these provisions have been passed by the state houses of assembly, including the bill to make for independent candidacy and free, compulsory and basic education, work on the amendment cannot progress unless the state houses of assembly conclude voting on all the 44 items.

As provided by the 1999 constitution, for any amendment to the nation’s ground norm to scale through, the National Assembly and at least, 24 States Houses of Assembly, must vote on it.

We recall that the National Assembly in March 2022 passed 44 Bills and transmitted it to the 36 states for their endorsement or otherwise as part of the constitutional amendment process.

Tellingly, the bickering over the propriety or otherwise of state police is what is stalling the constitution amendment. While the federal lawmakers voted overwhelmingly against and hence killed the bill, governors appear bent on having it passed.

The clamour for state police is dogged by the concerns that if established, the outfit will be used by governors to intimidate, harass and muscle opponents. Already, we are witness to how governors use state security apparatus to intimidate political opponents.

There are genuine fears that should states be allowed to establish their own police, such will be abused by governors. Only recently, the Inspector General of Police accused some governors of using security apparatuses to harass their political opponents. Imagine giving these same governors state police where they will have sole powers to hire and fire who heads it.

Even at that, should work on the fifth alteration to the 1999 constitution be stalled despite gulping huge tax payers’ money and other enormous resources simply because the governors insist on having their way on state police?

Perhaps the governors need to be reminded that they can only be in office for a total of eight years. The number of former governors currently serving at the National Assembly as senators is enough for the current governors to learn that time is a fleeting commodity.

With about N1 billion allocated to the constitution review committee for the whole process and public hearings held after which some plausible suggestions were made by stakeholders, those saddled with the responsibility of ensuring its passage must do the needful or risk being judged harshly by history.