Daily Independent (Lagos)
By Adetutu Folasade-Koyi, Senior Correspondent, Abuja
13 October 2008
Senators from the South of Nigeria are pushing for rotational presidency, creation of eight more states and removal of the immunity clause in the amendment of the 1999 Constitution.
Assembled under the aegis of Southern Senators' Forum (SSF), with Patrick Osakwe (PDP, Delta)as Chairman, the group met last week and discussed a 10-point agenda it would vigorously canvass in the forthcoming Constitution amendment.
The Osakwe-led SSF, which was reconstituted last June, set an agenda for the Constitution review exercise, making state creation a top priority.
The Forum in the Fifth Senate, under the chairmanship of Senator Ifeanyi Araraume, played a leading role in the quest for a southern President after former President Olusegun Obasanjo, but later gave way to the dictates of the ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), which zoned the presidency to the North.
The move is coming on the heels of a similar attempt by the Northern Senators' Forum (NSF), which had earlier announced an 11-member sub-committee on Constitution review and the budget.
In the draft recommendations, the SSF may support rotational presidency and governorship while it would also demand that the office of the President be rotated between Nigeria's six geo-political zones, while also recognising the North/South divide.
Part of the recommendations states that, "While rotation of the presidency will be among geo-political zones, it shall not move from the South zone to another South zone in succession.
"The position of the governor of a state shall be rotated between senatorial zones of a state, taking cognisance of the location of the governorship between 1999 and 2011.
"Local governments may be divided into two zones for the purpose of rotation within the local government."
Daily Independent also gathered that although the SSF "is in support of an additional state in the South-East, it is also canvassing for the creation of states in all the geo-political zones.
"The Senators are demanding that there should be equal number of states in each of the six geo-political zones.
"There shall be equality of states within a zone, thus there will be the necessity to create states in all zones of the federation to bring the number of states to eight per zone. There shall be created at least two states within every geo-political zone to cater for anomalies within the zones."
Also on the card is autonomy for the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), with a proposal that the National Assembly and INEC be put on a First Line Charge from the Federation Account.
The southern lawmakers are also demanding the removal of the immunity clause, which currently protects the President, Vice President, Governors and their deputies from criminal prosecution.
"The immunity against prosecution for the President, Vice President, Governors and Deputy Governors should be modified to restrict it to only civil matters. In criminal matters, there shall be no immunity," the proposal stated.
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