ABUJA—THE Federal High Court has so far received two suits challenging the amendment of the 1999 Constitution by the National Assembly.

A News Agency of Nigeria, NAN, investigation revealed that 50 clauses in the 1999 Constitution were altered by the National Assembly while 29 of the amendments were approved by the required 24 state assemblies. Consequently, the National Assembly ordered that the 1999 Constitution (First Amendment) Bill 2010 be gazetted as an Act of the National Assembly.

One of the suits in the court’s registry came from a constitutional lawyer, Mr. Bamidele Aturu, who is challenging the National Assembly for allegedly violating the 1999 Constitution in its amendment process.

He is also seeking judicial order to nullify the purported alteration or amendment and the gazetting of the Constitution Act 2010 on the grounds that the procedure that led to it had fundamentally and viciously violated the constitution.

Aturu also applied for an order of the court to prohibit the Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Mr. Mohammed Adoke, SAN, from executing or implementing the amended portions of the constitution having been allegedly done in manifest breach of the constitution.

The second suit filed by the Nigerian Bar Association, NBA, wants the court to resolve some issues before the new constitution could be adopted and implemented.

Top on the prayers of the NBA is whether the constitution can be deemed valid as a legal document without the assent of President Goodluck Jonathan.

Rickey Tarfa, SAN, who led Chief Akin Olujimi, SAN, Prof. Yemi Osinbajo, SAN, and Yemi Candide-Johnson, SAN, to file the application, said their  prayer was to stop the implementation of the constitution.

Tarfa said: “We are saying that until it is assented to by the President in line with the 1999 Constitution, it should not be implemented.”

The suit named the Senate president, the speaker of the House of Representatives, the National Assembly, the clerk of the National Assembly and the Attorney General of the Federation as defendants.

In the originating summons, the association raised three posers in which it sought to know whether, within the context of the 1999 Constitution, a provision of the constitution could be altered in a manner other than by an Act of the National Assembly.

It also sought to affirm whether any alteration of the constitution could be effected through an Act of the National Assembly.

Court declaration

The association also sought the court to declare that on a proper construction of some sections of the constitution, for the National Assembly to alter any of its provisions, its passage by the Senate and the House of Representatives must receive the assent of the President.

According to Tarfa, the NBA also wants the court to declare that the Act for the alteration of the 1999 Constitution purportedly passed by both chambers cannot take effect as amendments to the constitution in the absence of the assent of the President.

No date has been fixed for the hearing of the two suits.