The House of Representatives Ad-hoc Committee on Constitution Review has held a three-day retreat in Abeokuta, the Ogun State capital. The theme was the ‘Imperatives of Constitution Review/Amendment in Nation Building’. At the end of the retreat, members of the committee said they would avoid the pitfalls that bedevilled the attempt by the Seventh Legislative Assembly to review the 1999 Constitution. Correspondent ERNEST NWOKOLO was there.
The National Assembly has embarked on another process of reviewing the 1999 Constitution. The move is ostensibly to make it promote and protect democracy as well as meet the aspirations of Nigerians. The House of Representatives Ad-hoc Committee on Constitution Review was in Abeokuta, the Ogun State capital, recently for a three-day retreat. The event, which took place under the theme, “The Imperatives of Constitution Review/Amendment in Nation Building,” was chaired by the Deputy Speaker, Hon. Lasun Yussuff, who also doubled as the Ad-hoc Committee Chairman on Constitution Review.
The bid to review the constitution became necessary because of the failure of the previous attempt by the 7th Legislative Assembly and the increasing challenges facing the country in the areas of security, economy, resource control agitation among others. The committee was inaugurated on January 21 by the Speaker, Yakubu Dogara, with a mandate to deliver within the “shortest possible time,” amendments to the 1999 Constitution that would “stand the test of time” and continue the work of the 7th Assembly particularly in areas where consensus had been reached.
Earlier in June, the Senate Ad-hoc Committee on Constitution Review held a similar retreat in Lagos where politicians and other stakeholders deliberated on the need to fashion a better Nigerian constitution.
The former judge of the International Court at Hague, Prince Bola Ajibola, described the latest review as another crucial time for “tongue work” on the constitution. Ajibola, a one-time Attorney General and Minister of Justice, who was the guest speaker at the House Committee retreat, said the task before the legislators was quite important, because it was far better for Nigerians to “jaw-jaw than to war-war” on issues that affect the country.
The septuagenarian charged the committee to undertake a drastic and urgent review of the constitution to take care of the nation’s precarious economic situation. According to him, urgent steps were needed to return the economy to the path of prosperity, as Nigerians have never had it so bad.
He said: “The Nigerian Constitution needs to be amended, particularly the economic aspect, because we have never had it so bad. In our time, there was nothing like recession, oppression or depression. There is need to reconstruct the constitution, given the current realities. The culture of stealing and corruption must find their way out, so as to keep our country in the position that it should be.”
The Olu of Ilaro and Paramount Ruler of Yewaland, Oba Kehinde Olugbenle, also made a case for roles to the apportioned to traditional rulers in the constitution, since they are an integral part of governance, particularly at the grassroots level.
He said the process of constitution amendment in Nigeria is not only tortuous, but also cumbersome and urged the legislators to overhaul it for the benefit of Nigerians. He added: “It is not good to have a law that cannot be changed or fine tuned.”
In declaring the retreat open, Dogara admonished the committee members to re-examine all issues, including those where consensus had been reached during the botched review by the 7th Legislative Assembly and the contentious ones and proceed in the best way possible to meet the yearnings of Nigerians.
Dogara said since one parliament does not bind the hands of another that it is necessary to re-examine all the issues, agreeable and contentious ones. He urged the committee not to give up on the stalled proposal seeking financial and structural autonomy for local governments, but to revisit the matter again.
According to him, the Financial and Structural Autonomy Bill for Local Governments did not sail through because only 20 out of the 36 states of the federation supported the proposal.
Dogara, who was represented by the House Majority leader, Hon. Femi Gbajabiamila, noted that if the National Assembly had gotten four more states to support the bill at the time, they would have achieved the financial and structural autonomy for the nation’s local governments.
He also made a case for a decentralised police system to be included in the constitution, to enhance efficiency and effectiveness in combating security challenges across the country.
Dogara said the nation’s experience with Boko Haram insurgents in parts of the Northeast had justified the need for such a decentralised police force, saying it is something Nigerians should “ponder and debate” now. He added: “The Boko Haram experience has exposed the need for some for decentralised policing in Nigeria.
“I believe that this may be achieved by allowing a decentralised police force within one national police organisation or by the existence of localised police structure. This is a matter for Nigerians to ponder and debate.”
The Speaker, however, said the success of the fifth amendment of the constitution would depend to a great extent on the support of Nigerians, the state Houses of Assembly and the media.
For Yussuff, he identified legalising same-sex marriage, resource control, creation of more local government and the appointment of judges as some of the contemporary issues requiring constitutional review.
Others, he added, include the constitutional implications of the executive team ticket, in the light of the conflict in Kogi State following the death of Prince Abubakar Audu and need for a credible electoral process.
In his recap of what was achieved during the retreat, Lasun listed 14 resolutions which formed basis for the amendment of the constitution, including areas already reviewed by the 7th Assembly. The resolutions included, amendment of the bill of the separation of the Office of the Attorney-General and that of the Minister of Justice, financial and administrative autonomy for local government councils, the creation of the Office of the Accountant-General of the Federation, the authorisation of expenditure, devolution of power/legislative lists, electoral matters, creation of new states and boundary adjustment.
The Deputy Speaker disclosed that the novel thing about the on-going amendments which he referred to as “the fifth alteration,” is that it would not be presented to the President Mohammad Buhari as a single bill for his accent, as was the case with the fourth amendment by the 7th legislative Assembly, where both the bad and the good aspects of the amendments were rejected by the then President Goodluck Jonathan, because all came in one single package.
Lasun explained that the amendments would be presented as separate single bills and that the innovation would save time, remove all forms of technicalities and help the President in circumstances where he wants to give assent in some areas and reject others, instead of the previous pattern of throwing away the baby and the bath water.
The lawmaker from Osun State said they have “successfully navigated the bend” that stalled the previous exercise. He expressed the confidence that the on-going bills, when perfected, would be ready for the President’s assent before the end of his second year in office.
However, Lasun warned Nigerians not to expect the removal of the “immunity clause” for sitting governors, adding that the clause would stay, as provided for them in the constitution. He declared that “it is a no go area” in the current review exercise.
In his view, there is nothing wrong in the immunity clause as contained in the constitution, because it does not give the governors immunity against prosecution for criminal infractions, but only protect them from likely distractions of civil litigations.
He said altering or removing the clause, as is being clamoured for by Nigerians, would distract the governors from administering their states properly.
The committee, he hinted, had also looked into the report of the 2014 National Conference and picked the areas that were relevant to the current amendment efforts. He added that something must be done to ensure that local governments enjoy financial and structural autonomy.
He said: “There is nothing wrong in the immunity that is already in the constitution, because it doesn’t say that the person cannot be prosecuted after he has left the office.
“Nobody is immune when it comes to prosecution that borders on criminal charges. But, if you have to go to take a sitting governor to court on civil matters when the governor on whose hands lie the lives of the people, then that will bring distraction to governance.
“The immunity as it is today we are not going to touch it; I’m not going to deceive you and I’m not going to tell lies. The maximum years a governor stays in office eight years and whatever offence that he might have committed while in office is still as fresh as if it has just been committed yesterday.
“What people must do is to bring out such offences when the governor has left office. So, it is about institutions and individuals being lazy, nothing is shielding anybody away from being prosecuted after leaving the office.”
Nevertheless, Lasun lamented that governors had rendered local government administrations in the country redundant by starving them of funds meant for their development.
He said: “It is no longer news that local governments all over the country today are almost getting to non-existence and so we think that development is rural-based and local government has the central role in developing our environments. So, part of the alteration on the constitution is going to dwell on financial and administrative autonomy for local governments.
“All over the world, the centre of development has been found to be at the grassroots because we are talking about people who form small components of the society, from the family to the compound, to the villages down to the towns.
“We have discovered that over time local governments are no longer existing; it is not even a question of whether elections are conducted or not, but we are considering barring states from assessing local government money, if there are no elected officials at the councils.
“That is part of the alteration that we are going to do. If you don’t have any elected local government official, we will make sure that you don’t get the money of such local government.
“The stakeholders were met in the past during the 7th Assembly on these specific issues; we collated their opinions and so we are not bringing confusion into the procedure of amendment. We are currently working on those issues that were successfully collated Nigerian opinions on these 14 areas.”
The host, Governor Ibikunle Amosun described the task before the committee as “very important” and “onerous,” praying that the country should get it right this time. Amosun argued the proposed review would provide a golden opportunity to resolve contentious issues hurting the nation, but warned that nobody toys with the unity and indivisibility of Nigeria.
Amosun identified those contentious areas as: “Derivation formula, revenue allocation, fiscal federation, state creation, resource control, local government creation by states, state police, as well as the perceived marginalisation of ethnic minorities and some regions.
“The proposed constitution review will present our countrymen and women a rare opportunity of making inputs into the constitution, to truly capture the terms of co-existence by the different nationalities that make up the country.
“The provisions are supposed to give judiciary financial autonomy and full control over its own funds. However, these provisions appear couched in a manner that create issues of compliance. Financial autonomy of the judiciary is the bedrock for a dynamic and pragmatic judiciary.
