The National Assembly and 24 governors are locked in a face-off over the refusal of 24 Houses of Assembly to pass 44 Constitution amendment Bills transmitted to them in March this year, it was learnt yesterday.
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The 24 Houses of Assembly however, told the apex legislative body that they would only consider and pass the bills if four additional bills proposed by them are passed and added to the original 44 bills before them.
The four fresh Bills seek to establish State Police, State Judicial Council, Streamline the procedure for removing Presiding Officers of Houses of Assembly and Institutionalize Legislative Bureaucracy in the Constitution.
The Chairman, Senate Adhoc Committee on Constitution Review, Ovie Omo-Agege, who spoke with reporters in Abuja, said the action of the Houses of Assembly was instigated by their governors.
The conference was organised by the National Assembly Joint Committee on Constitution Review.
However, neither the Chairman, House of Representatives Adhoc Committee on Constitution Review, Ahmed Wase, nor any member of the committee from the Green Chamber was present at the briefing.
Omo-Agege explained that he had Wase’s blessings to go ahead with the conference.
He lamented that only 11 states have considered and performed their constitutional role of passing amendments to the constitution.
The states, according to him, include Abia, Akwa-Ibom, Anambra, Delta, Edo, Kaduna, Katsina, Kogi, Lagos, Ogun and Osun.
However, our correspondent learnt that the Nasarawa State House of Assembly yesterday voted in favour of local government, legislature and judicial autonomy among other bills.
He added that the Speakers of 24 Houses of Assembly, through the Conference of Speakers of Houses of Assembly, have written a letter to the National Assembly Joint Committee on Constitution Review and gave four conditions for passing the amendments.
He described the letter as the “hands of Esau and voice of Jacob”, saying governors are behind the action of the Speakers.
States that have vowed not to pass the Bills include Enugu, Imo, Kwara, Cross River, Rivers, Ondo, Kano, Jigawa, Bauchi, Gombe, Oyo, Taraba, Sokoto, Kebbi, Niger, Ebonyi, Zamfara, Plateau, Benue, Adamawa, Borno, Yobe, Ekiti and Bayelsa.
Present at the briefing were the Senate Leader Abdullahi Ibrahim Gobir, Senate Chief Whip, Orji Uzor Kalu, Deputy Chief Whip, Aliyu Abdullahi, Minority Whip Chukwuka Utazi, Adamu Aliero and Suleiman Abdu Kwari.
Omo-Agege said: “It is most disheartening to inform you that only 11 State Houses of Assembly have demonstrated their independence and loyalty to the constitution regarding the 44 bills. Twenty four State Houses of Assembly have yet to consider and vote on these bills.
”More worrisome is that while we are still expecting the receipt of the resolutions of the remaining Houses of Assembly, we received a letter from the Conference of Speakers of State Assemblies informing the National Assembly that the remaining states will not act on the 44 Bills, unless the National Assembly passes four new Bills they have proposed in the letter.
He said the National Assembly is not averse “to acting on any proposed Bill or memoranda appropriately tabled before it, at any time in its life.
“However, it is legally inappropriate for the Conference of Speakers to use the four Bills as a quid pro quo to act on the 44 Bills the National Assembly 44 Bills transmitted.”
Omo-Agege added: “Although the Conference of Speakers did not allude to it in their letter, we are aware of the undue interference with legislative processes and the political capture of some State Houses of Assembly by some state governors….
“This interference has been ramped up, especially in opposition to the Bills granting financial and administrative autonomy to local governments.”
He appealed to stakeholders to prevail on the Conference of Speakers to withdraw their threat to truncate the constitution amendment process.
Responding to questions after his address, Omo-Agege insisted that the Constitution amendment process by the ninth National Assembly was not dead.
He added that of the 44 bills before the State Houses of Assembly, “the most fundamental to a lot of us is the local government autonomy, even if they shoot down every other Bill as not being important to them.”
On why the National Assembly failed to list the Bill on State Police among the ones they voted on, Omo-Agege said the bill was rejected at the committee level, based on long-held fears of possible abuse of the security outfit by governors.
The National President of the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC), Comrade Ayuba Wabba, yesterday vowed to mobilise workers against state governments that have refused to pass the Local Government Autonomy Bill.
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