AHEAD of the planned constitutional amendment exercise by the National Assembly, the Nigeria Governors' Forum (NGF) and the Federal Government have entered into talks on critical areas of the expected amendments.The NGF is pushing for amendments in critical sectors of revenue allocation and resources management. Its chairman, Mr Rotimi Amaechi of Rivers State said in a recent interview that the governors would present a bill to the National Assembly through a private member shortly.The Federal Government has also indicated its decision to seek further amendment to the 1999 Constitution, to guarantee a more stable polity, especially by ensuring executive office holders at the level of president and governors spend only a single term of six years in office.It was gathered that the governors have met with the president on two occasions in recent weeks where they discussed the planned amendments.Sources said that while the governors were pushing for amendments to the current revenue allocation formula, the Federal Government believed that presenting a bill to that effect could usurp the functions of the Revenue Mobilisation Allocation and Fiscal Commission (RMAFC), which has been working on the revised revenue formula for some years now.Besides the revenue formula, it was gathered that the governors are also mulling over the idea of state police, or an enhanced input of the state chief executives in security of their states, especially as many of them currently shoulder the responsibilities of the police which they cannot give orders to in times of crisis.Said a source: 'The governors have tabled a number of issues before the president. One of them is the revenue formula, and another issue is the state police. They feel that while states spend a fortune to assist the police, the command structure does not recognise such assistance. The police only get orders from federal authorities.'The governors felt that they should not be seen as preparing such a sensitive document as a constitutional amendment bill without bringing the details to the hearing of the president.'It was, however, gathered that the NGF is silent on issues such as the single tenure of office and the planned local government autonomy."The governors appeared not to have made up their minds on the single tenure issue by the last meeting with the president. They want to further meet and conclude the final draft of the bill after which the whole issues would be ironed out with the president,' another source said.
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