By Ochereome Nnanna
ANOTHER issue is that of immunity for presidents and vice presidents as well as governors and deputy governors. I am unequivocally for the retention of the immunity clause. It is not in the interest of the tax paying public that the immunity clause should be removed, contrary to improperly “chewed”, popular view.

There is this mistaken notion that once the immunity clause is deleted from the laws, presidents, their deputies and governors and their deputies who embezzle public funds will be brought to book (jailed, that is). And I laugh.

If we remove the immunity clause, the only people who will laugh their ways to their bank accounts will be the lawyers, media houses and those we call “political jobbers”. More money will also flow from the public coffers into the pockets of lawmakers, whom the president or governor will further appease to come to his support or at least look the other way.

Each time a governor is accused he assembles a battery of Senior Advocates of Nigeria, SANs, and pays them their jumbo fees from the public treasury. The case would drag from High Court to Supreme Court until their two terms of office are exhausted. He will also send his spin doctors and professional noisemakers to the “court of public opinion” (the media) to win the public to his side.

If only the public gets to know how much governors pay to save their seats at the election petition tribunals alone, they will insist that electoral cases must be exhausted before any of the contenders is sworn in.

Each time the case comes up in court, some governors mobilise and foot the bills of their entire cabinet and political support groups to the premises of the courts. If you add to this the new cases that will follow allegations (real or opposition-contrived) of stealing while in office, the envisaged morass is better imagined than experienced.

The very difficulty in convicting governors who left office six years ago should an object lesson. There is no substitute to getting the laws as currently obtained implemented. The Constitution gives the National Assembly the power to control the federal purse, while the state assemblies are in charge of state funds. The legislature has also been empowered to impeach chief executives who commit misconducts including stealing of public money. Even if we argue that the executive has shackled them, what about former presidents and governors who have been civilians for over six years now and yet walking free and enjoying their loots? The immunity and powers are gone, yet nothing has happened to them to deter current office holders.

Deleting the immunity clause will be a waste of efforts – and public funds.

Protecting our girl children

THEN in Section 29 which deals on renunciation of Citizenship, the
Constitution speaks with a forked tongue. While in sub-section 4(a) it says “full age” means the age of eighteen years and above”, it adds in sub-section 4(b): “any woman who is married shall be deemed to be of full age”.

Section 29(4-b) immediately negates Section 29(4-a) because it declares a woman younger than eighteen (a minor) as being “of full age”. Yet, such a “woman” is not, under the electoral law, entitled to vote or be voted for. She cannot be held liable to pay taxes. She cannot legally smoke or drink alcohol or be sent to adult prison. Our laws do not recognise her to be of the “age of consent”.

Yet the laws allow Islamic and Customary laws (which are supposedly inferior to the Constitution) to violate the girl child’s right to develop to constitutionally approved full age before being saddled with the burdens of adulthood.

It is discriminatory to declare girl minors married off at tender ages to be of “full age” since there are no similar provisions against boy children. Besides, it exposes girl minors to the hazard of vesico-vaginal fistula and subsequent abandonment and stigmatisation by the same society that promotes such harmful cultural practices.

The Nigerian girl child, irrespective of her faith or cultural background, has the right to be protected from these outmoded religious and cultural laws. They should be encouraged, just like their male counterparts, to evolve into full adulthood before being burdened.

The age of 18 and above allows the child to acquire basic education up to at least Senior Secondary School level and be properly equipped to make choices she can live with for the rest of her life.

Pending when Nigerians come to their senses and realise that we do not need constitution amendment but a totally new constitution, we must encourage the National Assembly to muster the necessary numbers and expunge Section 29(4-b).

We must put unrepentant paedophiles like Senator Sani Yerima and his cohorts to shame, if indeed they are capable of being ashamed.

My take on Constitution amendment (2)

THE Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria is supremely important but it is not necessarily supreme.

What do I mean? It is supremely important in that defines who a Nigerian is, and how Nigerians are governed (and this includes non-Nigerians resident in Nigeria).

Only God is bigger. But the Constitution is bigger than religion – a person’s chosen way to God. Or, at least, it should be. But the Constitution appears confused when it comes to certain religious issues.

Chapter 1, Part 1 Section 1 of the Constitution says: “The Constitution is supreme and its provisions shall have a binding force on all authorities and persons throughout the Federal Republic of Nigeria”. Section 1(2) says: “The Federal Republic of Nigeria shall not be governed, nor shall any person or group of persons take control of the Government of Nigeria or any part thereof, except in accordance with the provisions of this Constitution”. It adds in Section 1(3): “If any other law is inconsistent with the provisions of this Constitution, this Constitution shall prevail, and that other law shall to the extent of the inconsistency be void”.