Last week, the Senate constituted a 56-member Constitution Review panel with the aim of considering proposals for aspects of the amended Nigerian Constitution of 1999. ABDULRAHMAN ZAKARIYAU writes.
The constitutional review is another opportunity for a country like Nigeria, to adjust its constitution to address current reality in the country. However, like every other review we have experienced in the past, questions have been asked about whose interest this proposed constitutional review will address.
The Committee
In an attempt to address some issues in the 1999 constitution as amended, the 9th senate under the leadership of the Senate President, Ahmad Lawan, has inaugurated a 56-member Constitution Review Committee.
The Constitution Review committee set up on Thursday is expected to be headed by the Deputy Senate President, Senator Ovie Omo-Agege. The committee, inaugurated during plenary consists of all the eight principal officers, one Senator each from the 36 states and two members from each of the six geo-political zones.
Members of the committee including the principal officers who will serve as the steering committee are Senate Leader, Senator Yahaya Abdullahi; Deputy Senate Leader, Senator Ajayi Borrofice; Deputy Chief Whip, Senator Sabi Abdullahi; Senate Minority Leader, Senator Enyinnaya Abaribe; Senate Deputy Minority Leader, Senator Emmanuel Bwacha; Minority Whip, Senator Philip Aduda and Deputy Minority Whip, Senator Sahabi Ya’u.
Other members include former Deputy Senate President, who chaired the committee in the Eighth Senate, Senator Ike Ekweremadu; Senators Opeyemi Bamidele, Smart Adeyemi, Danjuma Goje, James Manager and five female Senators namely Stella Oduah, Oluremi Tinubu, Biodun Olujimi, Uche Ekwuenife, and Aisha Dahiru.
However, the only Young Progressive Party (YPP) Senator Ifeanyi Uba raised an objection to the effect that his party was not taken into account even when it is the third in the Senate after the All Progressives Congress (APC) and the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).
“We have three political parties in the Senate, APC, PDP and YPP. There was no mention of my political party in the constitutional review committee and I feel it may be an oversight. You should consider my party because we are here on our own. I am here for my party caucus just like every other senator.”
But Lawan said: “Because you have come under order 43, this is for our information. The membership is not strictly based on political parties. At the beginning, I said each state would be represented by a senator each and then each geopolitical zone would have zonal representation. So it is not based on political parties but your point of order is well taken.”
This signal the commencement of a task that may address many issues that Nigerians have been agitating for.
Focus on critical areas
Notably, constitutional lawyers have urged the Senate Committee on Constitution Review to focus on critical areas of priority and ensure that any evaluation did not end up in futility like previous exercises.
In an interview with a national daily, Mamman Lawan Yusufari (SAN), insisted that the National Assembly has the legal right to review or amend the constitution, they, however, urged the 56-member committee to consider urgent review of the federal structure, state policing, electoral laws, security and economy in their national assignment.
He also argued that the timing of the review was quite germane, expressed hope that the new undertaking by the lawmakers would not end up in futility. Yusufari, who is a professor of law at Bayero University, Kano (BUK) advocated amendment of Federal structure, especially in power and resources control that would fashion out healthier growth and relationship between the centre and states.
It’s an exercise in futility – LNC
Reacting to the task before the committee, the Lower Niger Congress (LNC), said it was an exercise in futility, a journey to nowhere and an affront to the constituent components of Nigeria.
The group in a statement recently signed by its Secretary General, Mr Tony Nnadi, the group noted that “the legislative mandate/power of the National Assembly does not include constitution-making, which requires constituent powers that are vested exclusively in the people as an incident of their sovereignty.”
Let those who wish to research or understand this assertion look up Section 14 (2)(a) of the so-called 1999 Constitution, which states that ‘Sovereignty belongs to the people, from whom government, through this constitution, derives all its powers and authority.’
“Accordingly, anyone who does not know that the National Assembly does not have the constituent powers to make or remake the constitution of Nigeria is simply ignorant on the subject, whether such a person is a senior advocate or a professor of law,” the group said.
According to the LNC, there is a countrywide push to take down the “rogue 1999 constitution” and restore the hijacked sovereignties of the constituent components of the Nigerian union.
Those in the National Assembly who now pretend that they are the new custodians of our sovereignties simply because they were elected, should realise that they are by that pretence, aiding and abetting the treason already committed by those who first hijacked our sovereignties by imposing the fraudulent 1999 Constitution. They are by that act of abetting the original sin, committing treason against the rest of us and let it be clear to them that when things will snap for Nigeria, consequences will attach for their current role.
“Let it also be made clear that whatever the 9th Assembly does in the so-called constitution review they are initiating will go down with the 1999 Constitution when it is rejected on the streets by the constituent components of Nigeria currently choking under it.”
