THE Deputy Senate President, Ike Ekweremadu last week told journalists that the Senate Constitution Review Committee had already commenced work on a review of the nation's constitution. The issue of constitutional amendment gained momentum when President Goodluck Jonathan announced his intention to send a proposal for a six-year single term for the president and governors to the National Assembly. The president has been reported to be proposing amendments of between 30 to 50 sections of the 1999 Constitution. Other key constitutional provisions being proposed for amendment by the president include sections of the Constitution that deal with tenure of local government councils, Joint State-Local Government Account, prison management, citizenship/indigeneship and revenue allocation. THE issue of constitutional amendment was top on the agenda of parliament at inauguration in June 2011. Indeed, when the 7th National Assembly was inaugurated, Speaker of the House of Representatives, Aminu Waziri Tambuwal, announced an agenda that included the review of critical sections of the Constitution as well as a review of the internal operations of the House. He spoke about a new order that would foster transparency, institutional integrity, efficient public expenditure management, improved capacity and productivity of legislative committees, e-parliament and so on. According to him, 'The House will be more transparent regarding all public funds spent for the purpose of paying the salaries and allowances of legislators and ensure that distinction is sufficiently made between what a legislator actually earns and what is spent to run and implement legislative business and committees' activities.' The president of the Senate, David Mark, has also expressed commitment to constitutional amendment.REGARDLESS of who proposes an amendment to the Constitution, the legislature remains the central actor in constitutional change, it is good to note that it has taken charges. According to Section 9 of the Constitution, the National Assembly is empowered to alter the Constitution. A bill for an amendment of the Constitution is to be passed by no fewer than four-fifths majority of members of each of the House and approved by a resolution enjoying the support of not less than two thirds of the houses of assembly of the states. WHAT has happened since 1999 is a record of poor appreciation of the enormity of this responsibility, the gravity of its implication for the nation and the quality of leadership and seriousness that this responsibility calls on the members of parliament to demonstrate. During the 4th and 5th parliament, both the presidency and the legislature had embarked on a mission to amend the Constitution. The process in parliament led to the production of a draft constitution which was never passed, after the enormous investment of public funds into the process. Similarly, the 6th parliament established a joint committee to review the constitution and to propose amendments, but the process was bogged down by a disagreement between the leadership of the two chambers of the parliament over the headship of the joint committee. The contest of supremacy between members of the Senate and members of the House saw to the failure of the joint committee process after an elaborate public show and the exhaustion of a budget of N2 billion. In the end, both houses carried out independent reviews and later set up a conference committee to harmonise the proposals of the two chambers. In the harmonised document, sections 221 to 224, 225, 226 and 227 were completely deleted; Sections 145 and 228 were substituted while 34 others were altered. COMPARED to the 4th and 5th parliament, the amendment of the Constitution by the 6th parliament was a landmark achievement. Still many Nigerians think the process did not go far enough to address some fundamental issues. These issues include the distribution of responsibilities between the state and federal governments and a corresponding review of the tax powers of these governments and adjustment of the revenue allocation formula. Other important issues include the power of the states to increase or reduce the number of local governments, issue of citizenship as expressed in the conflictual indigene versus settler divide and electoral reforms. In the same vein, some of the amendments were considered to be self-serving and therefore unbecoming of parliament. Among these are the amendment made on the constitutional provision on recall. The law has been made more cumbersome to shield the legislature from being held to account by making the process for recall more cumbersome.THE current effort to review the Constitution offers another opportunity for the National Assembly to redeem its image and address the above fundamental issues. They must give the review process the seriousness and selflessness it deserves. This time, we expect the National Assembly to catalyse a robust national debate on the issues. Members of parliament must ensure that the resources available to them are utilised to promote a robust debate, provide insight into the nature of the problems, learn from comparative and good practices elsewhere and ensure that the voices of all segment of the polity are heard. The survival, stability and prosperity of Nigeria demand that they rise up with commitment and patriotism to reach to make a good job of the process. They must not fail.
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