Lead Consultant to the Senate Committee on Constitution review, Professor Offornze D. Amucheazi, has advocated the need for members of the state legislature to be sensitised on the inherent benefits in supporting the new efforts at amending the 1999 Constitution.
He similarly advised stakeholders to ensure that the current efforts at ensuring the overall success of the amended sections of the Constitution by the National Assembly, did not fail.
The varsity don gave the advice yesterday at a Civil Society and Media advocacy technical session on constitutional review ,held in Abuja.
He said: “It is essential we make it very clear that the advocacy cannot end here without the involvement of the state legislature. The state lawmakers are major stakeholders in this project. So, both the media and the civil societies must carry this advocacy to them so that the project doesn’t suffer a setback like the previous one did.
“It is also important we ensure effective sensitisation of major stakeholders and we have quite more than enough resources in this room to really achieve that. “
On some controversial areas of the amended sections, particularly that on immunity for lawmakers, he urged participants not to get pissed off with the “long title”, stressing that there is nothing to really fear about the whole exercise.
“We can’t afford to let go of this opportunity because it is the general tradition world over that legislators have immunity covering them during plenary. This means whatever they say, of course based on facts during plenary or committee, they are covered, no matter what anybody feels about it. We are not saying that if a lawmakers in his personal capacity commits a crime, he should not be tried. No, that is not what the immunity here intends achieving.
“Yes, this is already in the Act of Parliament, but it is important this is rightly accommodated in the constitution because experience has shown that , such privileges are sometimes not recognised in court when the need arises.
“And like you rightly observed (reference to a comment by a participant), if a legislator disparages an individual invited to appear before the committee, such individual also has the right to return same. That is the beauty of democracy. So, I want to plead that we have a very clear understanding of this section so that our country can be the better for it.”
Also in a contribution, a development analyst, Ishaiya Buba Bajama, tasked the media to see the project as one that must be embraced by all.
He noted that an effective synergy between the media and the civil societies was very germane to the success of the ongoing effort at amending the 1999 Constitution.
The event which had in attendance a preponderance of members of the CSO and media practitioners, at the end, identified the need for individual and group responsibility , as well as getting resource persons to provide contents for public understanding of the essence of the project.
