By Johnbosco Agbakwuru
A  Constitution that will reflect the needs of the Nigerian people is expected to come to fruition about March this year as has been promised by the National Assembly. Before now, the Constitution has been severely criticised as a product of the military. Many attempts had been made in the past by the National Assembly to come up with acceptable Constitution for the country, but  due to one controversy or the other, the attempts ended up not yielding results.

However, the 8th Assembly has expressed the determination to ensure that the country is given a Constitution that will stand the test of time. Consequently, on December 8, 2016, the House of Representatives Special Ad-Hoc Committee on the Review of the Constitution, headed by the Deputy Speaker, Yussuff Lasun, held a three-day retreat at the June 12 Cultural Centre, Kuto, Abeokuta, Ogun State under the theme, “The Imperatives of Constitution Review/Amendment in Nation-Building (Constitution 4th Alteration Bills).

Stakeholders at the retreat include the representatives of the Nigeria Bar Association, NBA, the Nigeria Labour Congress, NLC, non-governmental organisations, NGOs,? Civil Society Organisations, CSOs, elders/opinion leaders, speakers of the state Houses of Assembly, National Council of Women Society of Nigeria,? market women and youth leaders and Chairman, Ogun State Council of Obas, Oba Kehinde Olugbenle (the Olu of Ilaro and paramount ruler of Yewaland). ?

From left: Hon.Lasun,Gov. Amosun and Hon. Gbajabiamila at the retreat

Before now, there have been arguments over whether Nigeria is practicing a federal system in theory or unitary system that was foisted on the country by the military. In the present efforts, one of the  issues is devolution of power which includes resource control and  state police. Others are  separation of the Office of the Attorney General of the Federation from the Minister of Justice and  autonomy for  the local government administration to abrogate the Joint  State, Local Government Account.

Also considered as paramount for the smooth operation of the country are electoral reform, separation of the Office of the Auditor General of the Federation from that of the Auditor-General of the Federal Government and the reform of judiciary considering the  Kogi governorship election debacle which followed  the sudden death of the All Progressives Congress candidate, Prince Abubakar Audu.

Before the commencement of the retreat, a former governor of Anambra State, Dr. Chukwuemeka Ezeife (Okwadike), had told Sunday Vanguard that the panacea for a strong and united Nigeria  was the restructuring of the country.

While advising the National Assembly on the best way to make Nigeria great, Ezeife said, “The first issue to attract their attention is restructuring because, without restructuring, the country may not survive.  One of the things to talk about is the number of local governments in the country.

“As you have seen, how many policemen were appointed recently from Kano, and  how many from the other side of the country? After that, you talk about the economy.

“We need to restructure to have larger states, that is, count the geo-political zones as states and they should be able to give themselves light, they should be able to deal with  ecological problems, they should  be able to provide transportation and water and then there will be more competition and protection of property.

“When governors go to Abuja and they are given money and they come home and massacre it, nobody is complaining, that is one of the weaknesses of the system we have now. But if an Igbo governor goes to Abuja and collects money for Igbo and comes back to use it any how, he will die.

“So, the most needful of all actions required is restructuring because God gave us everything, but we are denying ourselves everything. With restructuring, we will achieve what God planned for us.”

Rationale

Speaking at the retreat, the Deputy Speaker and Chairman of the House Special Ad-Hoc Committee on the Review of the Constitution, Lasun, explained that the retreat was aimed at putting in place a framework for the exercise and also explained the rationale behind the move to grant autonomy to local councils.

The Deputy Speaker stated that part of the assignment of the committee was to conclude work on the 4th Alteration Bill that was started by the 7th Assembly and  process all other proposals for further alteration of the Constitution as may be necessary on behalf of the House or as referred to it by the House.

He said, “It pleases me to inform you that the committee has been working tirelessly to ensure that the Fourth Alteration Bill is given speedy passage and subsequent assent by the President.”

According to him, efforts made by the previous assembly to ensure a successful amendment of the Constitution that would have contributions from the Nigerian people were thwarted because the process started around  the third year of four-year tenure, stressing that it was in a bid to avoid the mistake of the previous attempts that the leadership of the 8th assembly decided to start the process early.

He said, “We will round off our work between February and March (next year) to give the President ample time to go through the amendment for his assent.

“In order to make the amendment process more flexible and practicable, the 4th Alteration Bill has been segmented into 14 Bills and we are presently considering over thirty (30) Bills referred to the Committee by the 8th Assembly.

“Having considered the reasons why the Alteration Bill in the 7th Assembly was declined by the President, we have decided that the process should commence de-novo and fast-tracked to ensure a timeous passage of the Bills.

“The demand for more in the scheme of things and access to control of resources has led to increased violence, hostage taking and disruption of the activities of the oil industry- the mainstay of the country’s economy.

“These conflicts are traceable in many respect to dissatisfaction by different groups within the geopolitical configuration with the distribution of power particularly, control over natural and fiscal resources within the federal structure. The balance of power is said to be too heavily tilted in favour of the central government.

“The issue of local government creation and the constitutional conflict it has generated in the operations of the 1999 Constitution have shown that whereas the Constitution provides for creation of new local governments and provides a procedure by which the states can undertake same, the fact that no state has been able to complete the process under the Constitution is a sign of failure or undue rigidity, perhaps or indeed, both.

“Some of the scandals associated with some individual judges, their judgments and what may be termed questionable motives, have raised questions about the underlying policy considerations that come to play in the appointment of judges.

“A lot of issues have arisen in relation to the electoral process. The need to establish a credible time-limit for the conclusion of election petitions. What are the constitutional implications of the executive team ticket? At what point does it actually begin in the light of the conflict in Kogi?

“It is no longer news that local governments all over the country today are almost close to non-existence.  And so we feel that development is rural based and the local government has a central role to play to developing our environment.  So part of the alteration this time around will have to do with financial and administrative autonomy for local government.

“We have discovered that all over the world, the  centre of development has been found to be at the grassroots because we are talking about people.

“Any state would not be able to access local government money any longer if there are no elected officials at the local government.  This is part of what we are plotting in the alteration,  we make sure you don’t get your money from the federation account.  It  goes beyond party lines. We are all Nigerians and don’t forget that after election has been conducted,  won and lost,   governance starts. Constitution is about governance,  it is not about political parties. ”

Lasun ruled out the possibility of stripping  state governments the power to constitute the States Independent Electoral Commission (SIEC) in the Constitution review exercise.

Assuring that the renewed effort to amend the Constitution would be completed by March 2017, he explained that the need to fast track the process was borne out of the need to avert a situation whereby issues to be tabled for amendment could not be politicized.

In his remarks, House Speaker, Yakubu Dogara, told the the committee to continue to engage in full consultation with the Senate and where possible hold joint activities.

Dogara, who was represented by the Majority Leader of the House, Femi Gbajabiamila, said, “After dealing with agreed issues on Constitution review, we may start discussion on possible amendment of contentious areas of the Constitution.

“The issue of local government funding, functions, structure and elections should be reformed if we will make progress as a nation. Happily, at the last botched constitution review, twenty states voted to allow financial and structural autonomy for local governments. If we got the buy-in of four more states, it could have been achieved, so we should not give up,”he stated.

‘Problems the Constitution can resolve’

In his presentation, the guest speaker at the occasion  and a former  Minister of Justice, Prince Bola Ajibola, SAN, lamented that the country had witnessed many unpalatable things.

Ajibola whose presentation was, “The Imperative of Constitution Review/Amendment in Nation-Building”, said, “We never had recession, we never had oppression, we never had depression. It is now happening.

“Easy money is no longer there. It is now a necessity that we must work on what we can get from our sweat. Easy money is no longer in the country, stealing money and corruption must find their way out.

“The most important aspect is that the Constitution will need to be adjusted, corrected to fit in, in the drastic situation we have now. We never had it so bad like this. We have to look into the constitution particularly, as it concerns our economy.

“A lot of people are being retrenched, a lot of people are without  jobs. By hook or crook, they try to find means of livelihood. We must find a situation that the Constitution solves these problems.”

Though there had been previous attempts to grant autonomy to local councils that met the brickwall as the preponderence view among the 36 states governors of the country was that the matter falls within the purview of state governments, warning that attempt by the National Assembly to legislate on the issue will tilt the country towards a unitary state, thereby undermining and weakening the fundamental principle of federalism, the President of Nigerian Union of Local Government Employees, NULGE, Comrade Ibrahim Khaleel, contended that the local councils deserve to be given the opportunity to explore their potentialities without  encumbrances from  state governments.

Governor Ibikunle Amosun, the chief host, commended the initiative, adding that it was incumbent on the lawmakers to write their names in gold by considering the clamour for fiscal federalism, state police, and cries of marginalisation by ethnic minorities in the country.

Also speaking, the Deputy Majority Whip, Pally Iriase, said no Constitution could be so nice that it will serve for all times, noting that things start evolving as situations change.

He said, “It is better we jaw-jaw than to war-war and what that means is that we should sit down to talk on behalf of Nigerians.We should craft together a constitutional amendment that will enjoin Nigerians to think first of what they can do for the country and not what the country can do for them.”

The member representing Aniocha/Oshimili Federal Constituency of Delta State, Rep Onyemaechi Mrakpor, said what the country needed was resource control by various states and regions.

She said, “I think it is a wonderful one and, like the governor of Ogun State said, we should resort to resource control and pay tax to  centre amendment.

“Taking it from that angle because we are abandoning the resource we have as everybody is sharing from the federal allocation and, when we return to what God has deposited in each of the states, we will be better for it because each state will struggle to stand on its own, while the federal is also aiming for the top. So, I stand by that, that we return to the  control of what we have.

“The basic economic problem is the resource control. It is when you work to control what is yours that you work better. There is a determination to look at every other area to complement what you have.

“Somebody talked about state police which is also an aspect we should look at; concentrating everything as federal might is one major problem that we should look at. It was done by the military, the Constitution is not a collective decision of Nigerians.

“It was from the background of the military, dictatorship, and they introduced what they wanted to introduce. Now Nigerians are ready to make the Constitution to be governable and acceptable.”