Nigeria: Constitution Review - Some House Members Don't Know it's Important to Read Through Crucial Report

9 February 2013

The House of Representatives Committee on Constitutional Review headed by Deputy Speaker Emeka Ihedioha has since finalised work on the reports of lawmakers from the public sessions held across the country. Dubbed People's Public Sessions, it was a novel arrangement in the constitution amendment process, which won admiration from home and abroad. The Ihedioha committee had collated the report and this report was due for presentation last week Thursday in Abuja when Speaker Aminu Waziri Tambuwal pulled the plug on the event. He said there were "hitches here and there" and there was need for more consultation on the matter.

To be fair, some stakeholders in the project said the Ihedioha committee did not carry them along in putting together the final report. Some members of the panel also claimed they were not allowed access to the final report. But the truth of the matter is the entire report had been a subject of intrigue and politics. Some issues that came up in the public sessions and in the collated report like creation of additional states and autonomy for local councils had become contentious. Some House members particularly those from the North felt the panel had approved the creation of new states particularly an additional state in the South-east to make for regional balance. There are suggestions that the collated report had been ready on Thursday, January 31. The draft copy of the report this writer glimpsed at the weekend, however, did not contain any such recommendation apparently used to blackmail the House leadership to postpone the report presentation.

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