Senator Victor Ndoma-Egba (SAN) is the Leader of the Senate and a three-time member of the upper legislative chamber. In this interview with Group Politics Editor, Taiwo Adisa, he provides insights into different national issues, including the persistent calls for the convocation of Sovereign National Conference (SNC), state creation and the recent call by leaders of Northern Nigeria for the introduction of derivation formula for states, among other issues. Excerpts:THE National Assembly has been quick to reject the calls for the convocation of a Sovereign National Conference (SNC), why is NASS afraid of this conference'We at the National Assembly are not afraid of a Sovereign National Conference. We have one sovereignty in this country which derives from the constitution and you cannot have another sovereignty outside of the constitution. So, it is constitutionally impossible to have two sovereignties. That is one. It is a constitutional impossibility to have two sovereignties because the sovereignty we have is derived from the constitution and the constitution has created institutions. We can go ahead and have a national discussion, a national conference, a national dialogue or whatever you call it. Nigerians are free to dialogue on any subject under the sun for as long as it falls within constitutional and legal confines. But to say Sovereign National Conference, which is not contemplated by the constitution and it is outside the constitution, that would be a grave anomaly.But going by the preponderance of views and the consistency of the calls, it is becoming obvious that Nigerians want to talk. Why is the National Assembly not providing the platform'As I said earlier, Nigerians are free to talk. Under the constitution, they are entitled to their opinions; they are entitled to freedom of association; so they can aggregate in whatever manner to discuss Nigeria in whatever manner. The National Assembly is not averse to that. Secondly, the National Assembly is certainly going to provide a platform for Nigerians to discuss. When we start the next round of constitutional amendments, it's going to be extensive public hearings. Nigerians of all shades, of all colours of opinion would be free to come there and we plan to make the public hearings very, very extensive so that Nigerians can come there and make their submissions. But if they want to dialogue outside what the constitution contemplates, it's still free and fair but to say it's sovereign, what would make it sovereign' What would confer the sovereignty on that conference' Who would confer it' Where would you derive it from' There can be a national conference; the National Assembly would support it. There could be a national dialogue but to insist on a constitutional impossibility would be an exercise in futility.Now that you have talked about constitution amendment, what are the issues on the agenda this time, especially in view of the 47 demands for state creation'There are very many areas that we have already identified and summarised but I don't want to pre-empt the issue because we want this process to be driven by Nigerians. When we start the next round, we would also call for memoranda but we also have areas that we have already summarised like you rightly pointed out, the area of state creation, even the area of local government system, revenue allocation, the fiscal terms of our federalism, the issue of state police, the issue of distribution of powers'Do we need to have so much powers concentrated at the centre' Do we need to distribute them to the states'There are so many issues but in this oncoming process, we would prefer a situation where Nigerians drive the process. There are two components to constitutional amendment: You have the constitutional requirement on the process and the procedure. That is constitutional; that is straightforward. But from the experience we have garnered in the two or three amendments of the constitution that we have carried out, amending any aspect of the constitution is feasible only when there has been a national consensus on a particular issue. If there has been a national consensus on a particular issue, then, it is easier for that amendment to pass through. Why is a national consensus important' It is because if you look at the constitutional provision for constitutional amendment, the process doesn't begin and end with the National Assembly. The states are involved because for each proposed amendment to pass through, you require two-thirds of the state Assemblies to approve. The implication of the two-thirds is a national consensus that you must have built around that issue or around that subject matter before you can pass it through the constitutional requirements. So, there are two components: the constitutional aspect which I have just told you and then, the political. So, as Nigerians are clamouring for aspects of the constitution to be amended, I hope they also would be involved in the political process of building the required national consensus on it and this why organisaations like the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) and other civil service organisaations have to be critical of the process that we envisage.One of the issues that failed to pass in the last exercise is the financial autonomy for state Assemblies; would you still place that on the agenda this time'We don't know. If they want it, they would raise it. The state Assemblies are part of the Nigerian public. If they submit a memo, we would take it up. But it was something that we offered to them (in the last Assembly) but for some curious reasons, they said they didn't want autonomy. It's the way of our politics.Recently, the Senate debated a motion on the state of bankruptcy in the states, in view of this, is the Senate or National Assembly going ahead to consider state creation'Well, I have expressed my views on this on the floor of the Senate. My views are public on this, they are captured in our Hansard and I stand by them. Yes, it is okay to have provisions in the constitution for state creation but we should also have provisions in the constitution for voluntary merger of states. We should have that in the constitution as well.
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