Speakers of Houses of Assembly across the country, under the aegis of the Conference of Speakers of State Legislatures of Nigeria, have said they will not allow the National Assembly or anybody else to blackmail them over issues bordering the Constitution Amendment.
A statement by the Chairman of the speakers’ forum, Abubakar Suleiman, said Tuesday’s comments by Deputy Senate President and Chairman of the Senate Constitution Review Committee, Ovie Omo-Agege, on the ongoing Constitution review were unnecessary.
Suleiman was reacting to a statement credited to Omo-Agege, who reportedly blamed the 36 governors for approving the non-passage of the 44 Constitution Review Bills transmitted to them by the National Assembly.
He noted that as major stakeholders in the Constitution alteration and the representatives of the people at the grassroots, the states’ speakers are in a better position than their National Assembly counterparts to know the basic and pressing needs of the people; hence their appeal for the inclusion of the Bills.
“For instance, the issue of insecurity should agitate (the mind of) 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, is by providing for state policing in the Constitution.
Omo-Agege had, at a media briefing organised by the National Assembly Joint Committee on Constitution Review in Abuja, on Tuesday, lamented that only 11 states had considered and passed amendments to the constitution.
The Deputy Senate President had also alleged that the Speakers of Houses of Assembly, through a letter to the Joint Committee, had given four conditions upon which the remaining 25 states would pass the amendments.
He described the action by the Houses of Assembly as the “hands of Esau and voice of Jacob”.
But Suleiman, who is also the Speaker of the Bauchi State House of Assembly, said: “That although a rejoinder to the claims made by the Deputy Senate President would have been unnecessary, it, however, became necessary to react to it in view of the fact that it was with the intention of blackmailing and undermining the State Houses of Assembly and with the aim of misleading the public.
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“It is very clear that the press conference was designed not only to blackmail the State Houses of Assembly but also to undermine them. And we like to make it clear that we will not give in to blackmail and intimidation by anyone, no matter how highly placed.
“It is, therefore, imperative we make clarifications in the misrepresentations of the Conference of Speakers of State Legislatures of Nigeria and indeed the State Houses of Assembly in the Press Release.”
Suleiman said Omo-Agege rightly alluded to a letter by the Conference of Speakers of State Legislatures of Nigeria conveying the four Bills for consideration by the National Assembly.
The Speakers’ chairman recalled that the letter was addressed separately to the two chairmen of both committees of the chambers of the National Assembly on the Constitution Review.
According to him, what they raised in their letter, as highlighted by the Deputy Senate President, were the same issues they have consistently raised in many fora of their 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 Houses of Assembly.
Suleiman noted that as major stakeholders in the Constitution alteration and the representatives of the people at the grassroots, the states’ speakers are in a better position than their National Assembly counterparts to know the basic and pressing needs of the people; hence their appeal for the inclusion of the Bills.
“For instance, the issue of insecurity should agitate (the mind of) 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, is 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.
“So, for the great importance of this proposed amendment and others, namely, streamlining the procedure for removing Presiding Officers of State Assemblies, Institutionalising State Legislative Bureaucracy in the Constitution, and Establishing State Judicial Council, the Conference of Speakers further appealed to the National Assembly for their inclusion in the exercise.
“Expectedly, a reply by Senator Ovie Omo-Agege to our letter was received on October 6, 2022, acknowledging the importance of the four Bills for incorporation into the alteration exercise and appealing to the State Houses of Assembly to proceed on the initial 44 Bills transmitted,” he said.