Delinquent constitution: Amendment or outright change?

As the Eighth National Assembly commences its seven-week recess, mixed reactions have trailed the recent constitution amendment exercise embarked upon by the federal legislators. While some analysts have commended the National Assembly for drawing from the lessons of previous amendments by ensuring that this alteration was timely, others have called for a brand new constitution on the grounds that the document was written by the military and handed over to civilians.

The 1999 Constitution was produced by a team led by Justice Niki Tobi, who was earlier chairman of the 1998 constitution debate committee. Tobi was a deputy vice-chancellor and dean, Faculty of Law, University of Maiduguri, until April 1985. The constitution was produced under the guidance of Abdusalam Abubakar, then military head of state, and became operative from May 29, 1999, with Olusegun Obasanjo serving as the first president under it.

Adeleye Adewole, chairman, Centre for Organizational and Professional Ethics (COPEAFRICA), described the 1999 Constitution as a document that lies against itself and thus, an embarrassing fraud which must be discarded in its entirety.

According to him, the intentions of those who designed the document were to further their own egocentric interest and personal idiosyncrasy, saying that it is easier for current political leaders to use it to pacify themselves against the rest of the citizens.

“There is need for a thorough new constitution, for an entire new package, because what we have now is a complete fraud which cannot drive any meaningful development. Most of the areas receiving amendment attention from the lawmakers are those that give them more powers and protect them from legal prosecution when they are out of office,” Adewole said.

“I subscribe to the idea of an entire new constitution because there are a lot of contradictions and open-endedness in the 1999 Constitution. Sections 85 and Section 145 are examples of what I am talking about. The introductory part of the 1999 Constitution also lies by stating that ‘We Nigerians agree’ because the document is a product of the military, and under military rule there is no legislature. But unfortunately, the current federal lawmakers are self-serving. They are not ready to do the right thing because they are also beneficiaries of the current system. The areas that are bad in the 1999 Constitution far outweigh the areas that are good, and thus, the best thing is to do away with it,” he told BDSUNDAY.

NASS under intense criticism

The National Assembly has also come under intense criticism for rejecting the proposals for devolution of powers to the state houses of assemblies, deletion of Land Use Act from the constitution as well as rejection of proposals dealing with women emancipation, including Affirmative Action for women at federal and state levels and citizenship and indigeneship for women.

Analysts say retaining Land Use Act in the constitution would negatively affect economic reforms and wealth creation in the country.

The Land Use Act is seen as one of the biggest impediments to converting land resources into individual wealth in the country as it hinders the transferability of ownership rights in landed property without government interference.

The Act vests all land in the territory of each state, except it is owned by the Federal Government and its agencies, solely in the governor of the state “who would hold such land in trust for the people and is therefore responsible for allocation of land in all urban areas to individuals resident in the state and to organisations for residential, agriculture, commercial and other purposes while similar powers are conferred on local governments in respect of land in non-urban areas”.

Removal of the Act from the constitution could have changed the way land is administered and owned across the country, with analysts saying it could revolutionise the mortgage industry and commercial agriculture.

Senators accepted a proposal mandating the president and state governors to appoint ministers and commissioners within 30 days of assumption of office and inclusion of portfolios while nominating cabinet members.

They also accepted a proposal mandating the president to attend a joint session of the National Assembly once a year to deliver a state-of-the-nation address.

In all, 29 of out of 33 proposals were accepted, while three were rejected.

Other alterations accepted include the amendment of Sections 82 and 122 of the constitution to reduce the period within which the president or the state governor may authorise expenditure from the Consolidated Revenue Fund (CRF) from six months to three months, amendment of the Third Schedule of the Constitution to include former Senate Presidents and Speakers of House of Representatives in the composition of Council of States, abolition of State Joint Local Government Accounts, appointment of a Minister from the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), changing the name of the ‘Nigeria Police Force’ to ‘Nigeria Police’, and separation of the office of the Accountant General of the Federal Government from the Office of the Accountant General of the Federation.

Others are separation of the Office of the Attorney General of the Federation and that of the State from that of the Minister or Commissioner for Justice, placing the Office of the Auditor General for the Federation and for State on first-line charges in the Consolidated Revenue Fund by making them financially independent, establishment of the Investments and Securities Tribunal under the Constitution, provision of 30 days timeframe for the President or Governor to assent to a bill passed by the National Assembly or State Assemblies or indicate his refusal of assent, and deletion of the Public Complaints Commission Act and National Securities Act from the Constitution.

There are 33 bills for amendment which came in form of separate clauses. Apart from Bill Number 24 which required four-fifth of the legislative body (73 senators), other bills need two-third requirement (87 lawmakers).

Exercise is self-serving

Political commentators have described the exercise as self-serving, wondering why the apex chamber would whittle down executive powers and boost its legislative powers. They voted the inclusion of former Senate Presidents and ex-Speakers of the House of Representatives in the composition of the Council of State, removal of the law-making powers of the executive arm of government and reducing of the President’s powers to sign bills passed by the National Assembly into law.

Reacting to the amendments, former Vice President Atiku Abubakar accused members of the party in the Senate of betrayal following the “shocking and saddening” decision of the Senate not to grant devolution of power to the states.

In a statement released by his media office in Abuja, the APC chieftain and former presidential aspirant said the decision by the APC-controlled Senate was “a lost opportunity to honour one of the party’s election promises to bring about change by shifting power closer to the people in the remotest regions of our country”.

“This blockage of the bill by an APC-led Senate majority is a betrayal of our party’s pre-election promises. It was an important vote and I’m shocked by some so-called progressives’ visceral and cynical opposition to restructuring,” the statement said.
It decried the reluctance of the lawmakers to remove “the insidious structural impediments to development, which decades of military rule had hoisted upon our nation”.

“Instead of building the foundations for a true federation, a small group of so-called progressive senators decided to stick with the new party line, pretending they did not know what restructuring was all about, and that even if they knew, it couldn’t be done. I think this is disingenuous,” it said.

Debo Adeniran, chairman, Centre for Anti-Corruption and Open Leadership (CACOL), said although Nigeria can make do with some amendments to the current supreme law, what the Bukola Saraki-led Senate calls “amendment” is merely self-serving.

“We need to look at Section 2 and Section 3 of the Constitution and look at the fundamental human rights and the socio-economic rights and our justice system. It is not only our Constitution that is at fault, the operators of the Nigerian Constitution are the main problem,” Adeniran said.

According to him, rather than call for state police, the constitution should be amended to make the Commissioner of Police subject to the state governor and not the Inspector General of Police, adding that most sections which the Senate has amended so far are unnecessary.

“We should be talking about socio-economic rights like education; people should have the right to food; people should have the right to housing and all of that; and you can sue the government if it doesn’t give you housing; opportunity to job when you graduate from higher institution. When you graduate you should have job to do; you should be able to send your children to school without paying user fee. So, these are some of the aspects CACOL will like the NASS to tinker with,” he said.

He observed that the question of immunity to NASS members and making former federal lawmakers to be part of Council of State are self-serving and unnecessary, noting that it is only Sovereign National Conference (SNC) that can guarantee a new constitution that will truly represent the wishes of the mass majority.

“We have not been operating true federal system; to have this we still need further discussions because even some of the states are forced to stay together. The people put in different states from where they would have preferred to be, have they agreed to stay together? If we want to operate a true federal system it should be a comprehensive rework of the polity and of the political system itself; and that can only happen in SNC. So, that is how we can have a genuine Constitution that will not be controversial in its implementation and everybody will have a sense of belonging,” he said.

“At the moment, what we have is a unitary system that is being confused for a federal system. We should not continue to waste time and money in amending an illegitimate constitution,” he added.

Amendment is okay

Bolanle Asimolowo, an Abuja-based political analyst, said the good portion of the 1999 Constitution has not been respected by political leaders, insisting that they are the problem of Nigeria and not the constitution.

“I am not part of those calling for a brand new constitution. I am for amendment of the 1999 Constitution. Sharia law should be out of the constitution since Nigeria is a multi-religious nation. Nigeria is a secular state, not one religion state. Also, the number of days that a sitting president can be absent from work before he is declared incapacitated should be stipulated. Look at the political crisis in the country due to Buhari’s absence; even though Osinbajo is trying his best to calm things, he was not elected President. All the contradictory Sections should be amended,” Asimolowo said.

Nnamdi Okosieme, an Abuja-based media consultant, expressed the belief that amending the existing constitution was better for the country due to the resource-guzzling process involved in getting a new one.

“The Independent Candidacy (IC) that the ongoing amendment has endorsed is a good development because the whole political party system has entrenched corruption in the sense that aspirants have to go out of their way to commit billions of naira to get parties’ ticket. That is why when they eventually get elected into office they do everything to recoup the money they spent,” he said.

“But as an Independent Candidate, you will be spared so much including assassination attempts on your life. It will not be as high as when you have many desperate aspirants within the party who want the same ticket; the issue of violence and the rest of them. I think it is good news that the Senate has agreed on this and the House of Reps should follow up. President should assent to that,” he added.

Okosieme, however, observed that the issue of 35 percent affirmation for women which the Senate turned down should be revisited and that the lawmakers should take a second look at it, positing that women should be given a greater national leadership role, given that men have dominated it for a long time with a not-so-encouraging result.

According to him, the constitution should also be amended to give more political and economic powers to the states and every state left in charge of the natural resources in its own soil.

“The amount of money going to the central government should be reduced. The local governments should be given autonomy. A situation whereby states governors administer the LG through caretaker committee should not be tolerated. Governors should not have influence in local government election. This will expedite action on grassroots development,” he told BDSUNDAY.

Why we retained Senate age qualification at 35 years

Meanwhile, Deputy Senate President Ike Ekweremadu has explained why the upper legislative chamber retained the age qualification for Senate at 35, despite reducing other offices.

According to him, this is to avoid creating a constitutional crisis in the event of a vacuum in the presidency.

“We decided to leave the one for Senate at 35 for this reason. Now, if there’s a vacancy in the office of the President and Vice President, the Senate President becomes the President for that period. As such, if his age is not the same thing with that of the President, we are going to have a constitutional crisis. Because somebody who is in the Senate can be Senate President and that person can be President for some reasons. So, it is important that the age limit for the President must be the same thing with that of the Senate,” he said.

At the clause-by-clause consideration of the alteration of the constitution, senators also lowered age requirement for elective offices.

The development came 24 hours after hundreds of youths stormed the National Assembly demanding that lawmakers pass the “Not Too Young to Run Bill”.

Consequently, senators reduced the age for the qualification to run for the office of the president from 40 to 35 years, retained that for Senate at 35 years, governors from 35 to 30 years, House of Representatives from 30 to 25 years, House of Assembly from 30 to 25 years, and that of chairmanship of local governments at 25 years.

Using electronic voting, 86 of 97 senators present voted in favour of the proposal, 10 rejected and one abstained.

Experts say if the bill is signed into law, it would open up the political space for young people who hitherto were restricted from contesting certain political offices on account of their age.

But not everyone is keen about it, as another school-of-thought believes youths may not necessarily have the political experience to cope with the demands of such political offices.

Others are sceptical about it, saying the elite will take advantage of the proposal to fix their children in elective offices.

Blessing Uboh, a public affairs analyst, in a chat with BDSUNDAY pointed out that Governor Yahaya Bello of Kogi State, whom he carpeted for being in the news for wrong reasons, is a bad example of why he is not in support of the #NotTooYoungToRun campaign.

“If Governor Yahaya Bello is the yardstick to measure this campaign, then I am against it,” Uboh said.

“It shouldn’t but realistically speaking it will end up with people like him because they are the examples one needs to give to justify such a position. Now we are just talking about age and not educational qualification, it doesn’t connect. The few young persons that have held office politically haven’t shown to the older generation that they truly should be given the leadership baton,” he said.

Previous amendments

Since the return to democracy in 1999, this is the fourth attempt at amending the constitution. Similar attempts had been made in 2006, 2010 and 2015, respectively. However, only the 2010 exercise was successful. In 2006, former President Olusegun Obasanjo had refused to give his assent to the document following his failed attempt to smuggle third term into it.

Similarly, former President Goodluck Jonathan refused to sign the document into law in 2015 after over N4 billion of taxpayers’ money was spent on it. Jonathan had returned the proposal to the National Assembly, alleging the usurpation of presidential powers and constitutional breaches in the process of alteration.

 

OWEDE AGBAJILEKE, Abuja, & NATHANIEL AKHIGBE