Some members of the House of Representatives have said the
amended constitution will be ready and passed to the President, Muhammadu
Buhari, before next month.
The lawmakers spoke in an interview with journalists in
Ibadan on Saturday on the sidelines of the South-West town hall meeting between
legislators and their constituents organised by Daria Media and supported by
the MacArthur Foundation.
Senator Olubunmi Adetumbi from Ekiti North; Senator Tolu
Odebiyi from Ogun West; Senator Kola Balogun from Oyo South; Mr Bamidele Salam,
who represents the Ede North/Ede South/Egbedore/Ejigbo Federal Constituency of
Osun State; Isiaka Ibrahim, who represents the Ifo/ Ewekoro Federal
Constituency of Ogun State; and Babajide Obanikoro, who represents the Eti Osa
Federal Constituency of Lagos State, participated at the town hall meeting.
Salam said, “The constitution will be amended before the end
of this 9th National Assembly. I want to give an assurance that the amendment
will be done. But let me tell you that amending a document such as a
constitution of a country is very serious business. It is an assignment that
requires a wide-ranging engagement of critical stakeholders, opinion moulders
and institutions.
“Even though we may not have cameras beamed on what is being
done presently, that does not mean that nothing is being done. People sent in
memoranda in hundreds of thousands from everywhere and there were submissions
made by members of the National Assembly themselves to amend certain aspects of
the constitution.
“All these will be aggregated together into a sizable
portion so that we don’t have an unwieldy set of clauses being pushed forward
for amendment. Very soon, we will start seeing more activities in that regard.
Before the end of this year, we would have been able to see some things. Some
of those provisions will be sent to state houses of assembly very soon,
especially those that we have formed a consensus on; they will be passed and
sent, and others will follow suit in the last part of the tenure of this 9th
National Assembly.”
Asked to give an insight into which aspects of the
constitution majority of Nigerians desired to change, Salam said it varied from
one geo-political zone to another.
He stated that the South-West wanted devolution of powers
and true federalism more than anything, while the creation of more states was
dominant for the South-East apart from federalism, while the issue of moving
the derivation fund from 13 per cent to 50 per cent was important to the people
of the South-South.
The lawmaker also said the policing system would be touched
by the amendment, adding that it was out of place for the police to draw
resources from the states and local governments, while those they draw funds
from had not said in their operations.
Salam stated, “It is my desire and that of my people that we
should unbundle the policing system in Nigeria. It is actually in our own
interest and I get baffled at times when I see those who are afraid of that. I
don’t know what anybody is afraid of in unbundling the policing to have a
decentralised control system and a more decentralised funding system.
“I was a local government chairman and we were buying tyres
and batteries for police vehicles and paying them allowances even though we did
not have control over them. As a member of the National Assembly today, the
police in my constituency still write letters to me to come and repair their
vehicles.
“If we have a system that wants to derive resources from the
local governments and state governments and they have no say in their
recruitment and operations, how does that work? I am very hopeful that the amended
constitution will take good care of this area.”
Ibrahim said Nigerians would see the progress made so far by
the lawmakers regarding the amendment of the constitution as from January 27.
“Based on the work plan that has just been rolled out, the
constitution will be passed on to the President for his assent. By that time,
the Senate and the House of Representatives would have sat and harmonised their
positions and the amended constitution would be transmitted to the President
before the end of February,” he stated.
Obanikoro said many of the constituents did not know the
roles of lawmakers, adding that that was why they brought loads of personal
problems to them to solve.
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