Uproar in Senate over review of constitution

There is uncertainty over the constitution amendment by the National Assembly as lawmakers disagreed on key issues in the exercise yesterday. Among them is whether to retain the position of the Land Use Act which vests control in the Federal Government or reverse it in favour of the states. This became contentious when the Senate opened a debate on the constitution review yesterday.

Also, the issue of granting autonomy to local governments by scrapping the state and local council joint account as well as empowering the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to conduct local government polls generated a heated debate.

Constitution Alteration Bill No. 32, 2017 as proposed by the Senate Committee on Constitution Review recommended the deletion of the Land Use Act.

Specifically, the bill seeks to alter the constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, 1999 to delete the Land Use Act from the constitution so that it can be subject to the regular process of amendment.

But many lawmakers argued against the proposal, insisting that the position of the Land Use Act should be left intact. This, however, met strong opposition from another group of senators who argued that the time had come for real change to be effected on the control and ownership of land.

The issue became so contentious that the Senate President, Bukola Saraki, severally intervened to calm frayed nerves as he declared that the leadership of the National Assembly had not taken any position on any proposal.

Meetings were to be held last night to conclude negotiations on the matter before the Senate resumes in chamber today to vote on the bills. The Ekweremadu-led committee proposed 32 bills on different issues to amend the constitution.

During the debate yesterday, and in its bid to redeem the local government areas from the control of state governments, the Senate resolved to amend the constitution to transfer the responsibility of conducting local government elections to the INEC.

This is the 33rd item for amendment which came via the adoption of a motion which was sponsored by Dino Melaye (APC, Kogi West) and seconded by Sunny Ogbuorji (PDP, Ebonyi State).

The Senate said there was a compelling need to strengthen the third tier of government. If passed into law, the 1999 Constitution would be altered, striping states of powers to constitute electoral commissions to conduct local government elections. The alteration is part of constitutional reforms by the legislature to make local governments become autonomous and independent of states.

While contributing to the debate on constitutional review, Melaye said the proposal that the state-local government joint account be separated for the purpose of guaranteeing local government autonomy could not be achieved as long as the state electoral bodies are allowed to conduct council elections.

“The electoral bodies constituted by the state government are practically a joke. The council election has to be conducted by INEC in order to guarantee its credibility nationwide.

‘’What used to happen is that governors sit in the comfort of their offices and select who to be pronounced as chairmen of local governments by the electoral commissions in their states. There is always no conduct of actual local council election in any state. Allowing states to oversee the conduct of local government elections will continue to make a mess of the call for council autonomy,’’ Melaye said.

 Source: The Guardian