The Senate on Tuesday rejected autonomy
for local government areas as well as a six- year single term for the
President, Vice President, Governors and Deputy Governors.
They also agreed that the President’s
approval was no longer required to pass amendments made to the
Constitution. These were among decisions taken at the end of voting on
the 32 clauses in the proposed Fourth Alteration to the 1999
Constitution.
On the proposed six- year single tenure
for the President and Governors as well as the granting of direct
funding to local governments, only 14 out of a total of 101 senators
present, voted in favour; 86 rejected it while only one abstained.
As a result, the proposal to amend
Section 137 of the Constitution, which would have disqualified current
public officeholders from benefitting from the six-year single tenure,
failed.
Senators, who voted electronically for
about four hours, also overwhelmingly rejected the recommendation to
remove the Land Use Act, the National Youth Service Corps, Public
Complaints Commission and National Security Agencies Act from the
Constitution.
In passing the amendment of Section 9,
the Senate inserted a new subsection (3a) which states that “for the
purpose of altering the provisions of this Constitution, the assent of
the President shall not be required.”
It then voted for a new subsection (3b)
and (3c) giving the National Assembly the powers to propose a new
Constitution and the procedures involved in producing an entirely new
Constitution for Nigeria.
Railways and issues of Road Safety also
found their way into the Concurrent List, indicating that states can now
own their own railway lines.
But the Senate voted against the
proposal to remove the Prisons from the Exclusive list in order to allow
states operate their own prisons.
The explanations by the Leader of the
Senate, Senator Victor Ndoma-Egba (SAN), that it was necessary to move
the justice system away from where it was currently, did not appeal to
his colleagues000.
Only 63 votes were garnered instead of the 73 votes required to devolve the powers to operate prisons to state.
The aspirations of the indigenes of the
FCT to have a mayor for Abuja also failed as only 57 senators voted in
support, 16 votes less than what was require to pass it.
The Senate also voted to make bills not
returned nor assented to by the President within 30 days to
automatically become law as in the alteration of Section 58 of the
Constitution.
It states, “Where the President neither
signifies that he assents or that he withholds assent, the bill shall at
the expiration of 30 days become law.”
The same applies to bills sent to the state governors from the Houses of Assembly of the different states.
The Senate also rejected the separation
of the Office of the Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of
Justice as well as the Attorney General of a state and the Commissioner
for Justice as captured in the amendments in Sections 150 and 195 of the
Constitution.
Voting on a clause seeking to remove
Section 29(4b) from the Constitution took a religious dimension when a
former governor of Zamfara State, Senator Ahmed Sani, raised a point of
order to draw attention to the implication of removing the sub section
Section.
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Sorry for Nigeria
ReplyDeleteThe ugly head, the collection of greedy hearts, the enemy of progress, the Nigerian stumbling block called NASS!!! God have mercy on ordinary Nigerians.
ReplyDeleteHave mercy for the poor people of Nigeria
ReplyDelete