Sufuyan Ojeifo
2 September 2009
Abuja — The Senate yesterday listed issues that would engage its attention in the unfolding process of amending the 1999 Constitution to include electoral reform, independent candidacy, political party strengthening, revenue allocation, fiscal federalism, judicial independence, immunity clause, land use, police powers and creation of states.
Deputy Senate President and Chairman of the Senate Committee on Constitution Review (SCCR), Senator Ike Ekweremadu, who announced these at a press briefing in his office in Abuja, said the amendment would be restricted to aspects of the constitution that are less controversial and easy to determine.
Ekweremadu assured Nigerians not to lose hope on the exercise, saying that the committee would begin the amendment process next month with a retreat in Kaduna.
According to him, "the Senate takes very seriously the issue of amending the Nigerian Constitution; hence, its decision in plenary, to commit the six executive bills for the amendment of the Constitution as well as all issues related to constitution amendment, to the Senate Committee on the Review of the Constitution.
"The Senate committee has advertised in several Nigerian newspapers and the electronic media asking all interested persons to forward written memoranda to the committee.
"Our advertisements encourage all Nigerians and stakeholders to send in written memoranda in hard copies to the secretariat or electronically to an e-mail address provided.
"We have created a full-fledged and efficient secretariat with technical experts and other support staff to administer the process and provide logistics, research and administrative support to the Senate committee.
"The secretariat is currently receiving communication and memoranda from those who are responding to our advertisement and reviewing, analysing and summarizing the submitted memoranda."
Ekweremadu said further: "To date, the secretariat has received more than 50 memoranda covering a wide range of legal and constitutional issues, including electoral reform, independent candidacy, political party strengthening, revenue allocation, fiscal federalism, judicial independence, immunity clause, land use, police powers and creation of states."
He added: "The Committee has drawn up a work plan to guide its work which we hope will lead to the passage of the first amendments to the Nigerian Constitution, in the next few months.
"The work plan includes a planned retreat of the Senate committee next month - October 2009 - (in Kaduna), a national public hearing in Abuja also in October, as well as zonal hearings in November.
"Thereafter, the committee will function in sub-committees to examine the report of the secretariat from all the hearings and from the memoranda submitted.
"The works of the sub-committees will feedback into the main committee and lead towards a final report and draft bills that will be presented to the Senate plenary for consideration and passage in the first quarter of 2010."
He continued: "The committee will consult with, and invite to its hearings, all those who have submitted memoranda, as well as relevant stakeholders and agencies of government who may be affected or involved in the areas of proposed amendment and reforms."
Ekweremadu used the forum to explain that the Senate committee is contending with inadequacy of fund to prosecute the entire process, pointing out that plans are already afoot to source for additional funds from international donor agencies.
Specifically, he stated that the N500 million approved in the budget for the exercise by the committee was not enough.
A princely N1 billion - to be shared at N500 million each by the Senate and the House of Representatives- is provided in the 2009 budget for the National Assembly for the exercise.Ekweremadu said in a bid to address the issue of inadequate funds, the committee had begun talks with the European Union (EU) and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) with a view to sourcing more funds and other forms of assistance in the process of constitution amendment.
Asked on the possibility of a new constitution being produced before the 2011 general elections, he stated that the amendment would be concluded and would be used for the poll.
Speaking on the Justice Muhammadu Uwais Electoral Reform Committee (ERC) report, Ekweremadu said the Senate and its committee would not base its amendment of the constitution on it (report).
"Our work will not be based on Uwais report. Let me say that there is nothing sacrosanct in that report. We are going to ensure that all shades of opinions whether within or outside Uwais report will be considered. So our work will not be based on Uwais report. We are looking at the constitution to see possible areas of amendment," he said.
He added: "Regarding the Justice Uwais Report, you know the history of that report, it was the President who set up the committee to look into the electoral processes and advise him and they reported back to the government and the government in its wisdom, based on that report, sent some bills to the Senate and the House of Representatives.
"As far as we are concerned, those are suggestions for the possible areas of amendment of the constitution. There is no time that a single person or group of persons will claim to have total knowledge of what should be done.
"We never have a situation where a group of people will be right in all subjects. So the Uwais report, those which are relevant to our democracy, and those that will add value to what we are doing and those we find reasonable we believe is being taken care of and we are going to look at them critically to know how it will reflect in our work."
Responding to a question on state creation, he said, "There appears to me to be lots of misconceptions about state creation. It is a process and not an event. It is only in the military regime that it is an event. The constitution has made it clear on how to amend the constitution.
"Unfortunately, the provision of the constitution on state creation, as far as I am concerned, is ambiguous. What I have advocated is that we need to look at section 8 of the constitution regarding state creation and remove those ambiguities so that those who ask for creation of state can go through this process.
"This same provision was in the 1979 constitution. What the then parliament did was to come up with an Act they called State Creation and Boundary Adjustment Act, providing structures and processes of state creation.
"Now, we have two options: we either amend that Act to make it relevant to our processes by removing provisions relating to the 1999 constitution or we can amend Section 8 to provide in clear terms that need to do what and what need to be done.
"If you look at the section, it is talking about referendum but did not say who will do the referendum; it didn't say who will vote. So, these are the things that must be made clear."
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