Mr.
President, Distinguished colleagues, permit me to make a few remarks as
personal explanation on the status of the current constitution amendment
effort.
Recall
that this Committee was constituted on Tuesday 22nd December, 2015
and inaugurated on Tuesday 13th January, 2016 – with a clear mandate
to reprocess the aspects of the Fourth Alteration Bill that had gained national
consensus and enjoyed huge good-will from the general public, states,
non-governmental organizations and international development organizations. However, between the period of the Committee’s
inauguration and now, over 15 (fifteen) Constitution amendment bills have been
referred to it. Some of the bills dealt
with issues already covered by the fourth alteration bill and a few others on
governance issues that have agitated the minds of Nigerians. They have now been considered by the
Committee.
Pursuant
to the foregoing, the Committee has disaggregated amendments proposals and
clustered them into Bills according to their thematic classifications. I
present to you highlights of some of the issues covered in the present
exercise.
Local Government Administration
Section 7
of the Constitution was amended here. The amendments in this section were
essentially meant to strengthen local government administration in Nigeria by
elaborately providing -
o
A
uniform 3-year tenure for elected local government council officials;
o
That
Local Governments without a democratically elected council shall not be
entitled to any revenue from the Federation Account.
These
amendments amongst others we believe will ensure effective service delivery and
insulate local governments from undue and counter-productive interferences from
state governments.
Distributable Pool Account
Section
162 of the Constitution was amended to –
o Provide for national savings of 50% of oil revenues
above the bench mark for a particular year and 10% of any non- oil revenue paid
into the Federation Account.
o Or such other percentage not less than that
provided in this section as the National Assembly may determine in the
Appropriation Act of a particular year.
o Provide that any such savings as stipulated
in this section will be distributed in accordance with the prevailing revenue
sharing formula and in accordance with the provisions of the Constitution
provided that the savings shall not be distributed in any period less than ten
years from the date of a particular savings.
o Abrogate the State Joint Local Government Account
and paying monies due to Local Government Councils directly into their
respective accounts;
o Define the fund of the State government; that
is, internally generated revenue from which a portion shall be paid into the
Local Government Allocation Account.
Authorization of Expenditure
Here,
Sections 82 and 122 of the Constitution were amended to reduce the period
within which the President or a Governor may authorize the withdrawal of monies
from the Consolidated Revenue Fund in the absence of an appropriation act from
6 months to 3 months. Essentially, this will compel early presentation of
budget proposal by the Executive arm of government thereby giving the
legislature sufficient time to scrutinize such proposal.
Political
Parties and Electoral Matters
Sections 134 (4) & (5), 179 (4) & (5)
and 225 were amended to -
o
Extend
the time for conducting presidential and Governorship re-run elections where no
clear winner has emerged from 7 to 21 days to give INEC sufficient time
to plan, considering the logistics that is required such as printing and
transporting new ballot papers for the elections;
o
Empower
the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to de-register political
parties for non-fulfillment of certain conditions such as breach of
registration requirements and failure to secure/win either a presidential,
governorship, Local Government chairmanship or a seat in the National or State
Assembly elections.
Financial autonomy of State Legislatures
Here,
Section 121 of the Constitution was amended to guarantee a first line charge
funding of State Houses of Assembly from the consolidated revenue fund of the
State.
Status of the Federal Capital Territory
Under this
head, Sections 256, 299, 300, 301 and 302 of the Constitution were amended to
Create the Office of an elected Mayor for the FCT with powers to administer the
FCT as if it were a State of the Federation by exercising all functions
presently administered by the Minister of the FCT.
Nomination of Ministers and Commissioners
Sections
147 and 192 of the Constitution were amended to –
o
Ensure
that the President and Governors designate and assign portfolios to persons
nominated as ministers or commissioners respectively prior to confirmation by
the Senate or State House of Assembly;
o
Provide
a period of 60 days within which such nominations shall be forwarded to the
Senate or State House of Assembly following inauguration; and
o Provide 35% representation for women in the
appointment of ministers and commissioners.
The Legislature
Sections
51, 67, 93 and 315 were amended to –
o
Create
the National Assembly Service Commission and the State House of Assembly
Service Commission and empower the National Assembly and State House of
Assembly respectively to provide for the powers and structure of the Commissions
through subsequent legislations, and
o Make it mandatory for the President to attend
a joint meeting of the National Assembly once a year to deliver a State of the
Nation Address.
o Remove the law-making power of the Executive
arm of government under S. 315. The
extant provision is starkly contrary to Section 4 of the Constitution which
confers law-making powers exclusively on the legislature.
Judiciary
Sections 233,
237, 247, 251 and Part I of the Third Schedule of the Constitution were amended to-
o
Provide for all appeals from the Court of Appeal to
the Supreme Court to be by leave of the Supreme Court except in the case of
Interpretation of the Constitution,
death sentences and fundamental human rights.
o
Allow two justices of the Court of Appeal sitting in
chambers to dispose any application for leave to appeal after considering the
records of proceedings if the justices believe the interest of justice does not
require an oral hearing of the application.
o
Establish a criminal division of the Federal High
Court to try electoral offences, terrorism cases, economic and financial crimes
cases etc.
o
Provide for appeals from the decisions of the National
Industrial Court to the Court of Appeal .
o
Provide for 12 Justices of the Court of Appeal to be
learned in Labour and Employment Matters for the purpose of hearing appeals
from the National Industrial Court.
o
Improve the quality of representation in the National
Judicial Council.
o
Put the Code of Conduct Tribunal under the control of
the judiciary instead of the executive.
Devolution of Powers
Second
Schedule, Part I and II of the Constitution were altered to decongest the
Exclusive legislative list to give more powers to states. This enhances the
principle of federalism and good governance. It substituted
“Post and Telegraphs” with “Post and Telecommunications”, and moved Pensions,
Prisons, Railways, Stamp Duties and Wages from the
Exclusive Legislative List to the Concurrent List and added Arbitration,
Environment, Healthcare, Housing, Road Safety, pensions, Land and Agriculture,
Youths, Public Complaints to the Concurrent List.
Local Government
Change of Name
The First Schedule was further amended to change the names of local
governments as follows:
o “Afikpo North” and “Afikpo South” to “Afikpo”
and “Edda” respectively;
o “Egbado North” and “Egbado South” to “ Yewa
North” and “Yewa South”;
o “Obia/Akpor” to “Obio/Akpor”.
In line with the Committee’s decision to disaggregate constitutional
amendment proposals into different bills, we consolidated and clustered
amendment proposals into appropriate thematic and sectional heads. While some
amendment proposals were incorporated into existing Senate Bills, others were
grouped thematically. Additionally, some amendments that could not fit into any
of the above classifications were produced as stand-alone bills. Those
stand-alone bills contain amendment proposals which we deem contentious, hence
the need to isolate them from other proposals.
These clusters
are given different short titles such as Fourth Alteration Bill No.1, 2, 3,
etcetera. The reason for this is to
ensure that the rejection of a group of sections dealing with an issue does not
affect other clusters dealing with different unconnected issues. This is to forestall the unsavory experience
of the Fourth Alteration Bill as passed in the 7th Assembly, which
after satisfying the provisions of section 9 of the 1999 Constitution as
amended was not assented to by the then President.
Finally, we
seek the indulgence of this Senate for more time to harmonize with the House of
Representatives and present a unified report for ease of consideration.
Thank You.
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