Paying lip service to restructuring

In the words of Dick Gregory, “Political promises are much like marriage vows. They are made at the beginning of the relationship between candidate and voters, but are quickly forgotten”.

The above quote is not meant to denigrate the institution of marriage per se but seeks to draw attention to the fact that when people taste enormous power at the center, it is so sweet and intoxicating that they forget what they promised the people.

The governing All Progressives Congress (APC) had promised in the build-up to the 2015 general elections that the party would restore true federalism and devolution of power. But in a twist of event at the consideration of the report of the Senate Committee on Constitution Review, the APC-led Senate rejected devolution of powers to State Houses of Assemblies.

Using electronic voting, 46 senators voted in favour of Fourth Alteration Bill Number Three, which sought to alter the Second Schedule, Part I and II of the Constitution to move certain items from the Exclusive Legislative List to Concurrent Legislative List. Forty-eight (48) senators voted against it and one abstained. The Constitution stipulates a minimum requirement of two-third of each legislative chamber and State Houses of Assembly, implying that 73 senators, 240 Representatives and 24 State Assemblies are needed to amend this clause alone.

Prior to last week’s clause-by-clause consideration to further alter provisions of the 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, the Eighth Senate had promised that it would abide by its Legislative Agenda, an official document that guides the activities of the Senate. I recall vividly a press conference by Senate spokesperson Aliyu Sabi Abdullahi in November 2015 after the upper legislative chamber adopted the Legislative Agenda, when he said: “Those things that are priority to the nation as they emerge will be addressed through legislation so as to legitimise whatever it is.”

One of the issues that have dominated public discourse in recent times is the agitation for restructuring of the country.

Political commentators have canvassed for the restructuring of the country in order to address some of the imbalances causing agitations for secession among some ethnic nationalities in Nigeria.

Advocates of restructuring heaved a sign of relief when the Senate called on the Executive to forward the report of the 2014 National Conference to it for consideration. This was because some of the recommendations of the confab like creation of state police and devolution of powers to the states, are components of restructuring, already addressed by the confab report.

It beats my imagination that the Senate would on the one hand call on the Executive to forward to it report of the confab, yet rejected devolution of powers to state assemblies in the constitution amendment exercise. Is it not rather curious that the same chamber that refused to devolve powers to state assemblies, granted itself sweeping powers, included former Senate Presidents, ex-Speakers of House of Representatives in the composition of the Council of State and whittled down executive powers by removing the law-making powers of the Executive arm of government?

Senators have shown by their action that they were only playing to the gallery in the first instance to score cheap political points. They are fully aware that unlike the 2015 general elections, restructuring will form the campaign tool in the 2019 general polls. As legislators already seeking re-election in 2019, they took advantage of public outcry to join calls for the Executive to send the report of the National Conference to it.

The import of not granting devolution of power to states is that items on the Exclusive List like environment, railway, national parks, stamp duties, power,  road safety which were initially recommended to be moved to the Concurrent List so that federal and state assemblies can legislate on them, will remain an exclusive preserve of an overbearing Federal Government. Events have shown that the Federal Government does not have the capacity to fund these areas amidst paucity of funds.

The resultant effect is that funding of these items would suffer, as states that would have invested in these critical areas to boost their internally generated revenue will not be able to do so due to legal constraints, thereby causing serious damage to the people.

With power devolved from the center, states will develop at their own pace and exploit areas of comparative advantage in their drive to promote economic diversification for enhanced revenue generation, job creation and improved livelihoods for their teeming populace.

The constitution amendment exercise witnessed the use of electronic voting for the second time since the inauguration of the Eighth Senate in 2015. Drawing from the lessons of the botched Seventh Assembly Constitution Review Exercise, the committee broke the alterations into clusters bills to ensure that the rejection of section(s) regarding an issue does not affect other sections dealing with different, unconnected issues. This was to forestall the experience of the last constitution amendment process, where the rejection of some aspects of the alterations by former President Goodluck Jonathan thwarted the N4billion exercise.

The intervention of Deputy Senate President and Chairman, Senate Committee on Review of the 1999 Constitution, Ike Ekweremadu, saved the alteration of Bill Number 24. This proposal spells out procedure for overriding Presidential veto. Unlike other alterations which required two-thirds of the apex legislative chamber for successful amendment, Section 9 (3) of the Constitution stipulates that four-fifth of the Senate is needed. When senators voted 87 to four in favour of the proposal and proceeded to Bill 25, Ekweremadu raised a Point of Order to explain the implications of not exceeding the requirement in the previous bill. His intervention saw Senate President Bukola Saraki ordering another round of voting on the matter. Thus, the number increased from 87 to 92.

As lawmakers embark on seven-week recess, Saraki failed to announce the reshuffling of committees, as earlier promised.

He had adjourned first plenary on Thursday to enable lawmakers reconvene to adopt Votes and Proceedings. However, news went around that the Senate President was already compiling names of new committee chairmen and that senators of ‘juicy’ panels had besieged his office to retain their seats. Rumours went around that the likes of Dino Melaye, Kabir Marafa had lost their ‘juicy’ committees of Federal Capital Territory (FCT) and Petroleum Downstream respectively.

We were armed with our midgets to record the announcement, even as some colleagues had sent slugs to the editors. However, Saraki shocked everyone when he failed to reshuffle committees. He simply announced the date of adjournment when they reconvened for plenary. The Senate President is indeed, very unpredictable.