Constitution Review: People’s Desire Or Another Spending Spree?

The National Assembly has commenced the process of another review of the 1999 constitution by setting up two ad-hoc committees that will drive the process. ANDREW OOTA takes a look at previous attempts and the prospects or, otherwise, of the 8th National Assembly to alter some sections of the constitution.

After many years of military dictatorship, General Abdulsalam Abubakar, former military Head of State, set the stage for the return of Nigeria to constitutional democracy in 1999 by first and foremost, approving the 1999 constitution.

The 1999 constitution was to give legitimacy to the democratically elected government, following announcement and lifting of the ban for commencement of political activities in the country.

It is important to state that the 1999 constitution was to effectively replace the decrees which the military used in ruling Nigeria through the barrel of the gun between 1983 and 1999.

While the document was used to inaugurate the first democratically elected government of former President, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo, who emerged President of Nigeria on the platform of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, on May 29th 1999, most of Nigerians had continuously called for the amendment of the 1999 constitution to align with democratic realities.

It was the thinking of most Nigerians that although the military, under General Abdulsalam Abubakar, returned the country to democracy, the 1999 constitution was equally drafted with a military mindset, therefore the document needed to undergo whole cell amendment. Others believe a piece meal process of amendment should be applied, while others advocated for a referendum where the Nigerian people would decide how their constitution would be.

The arguments continued on with both sides of the divide raising convincing points and cogent reasons throughout the first four years of the Obasanjo administration until towards the end of second tenure of the Obasanjo Presidency that government saw the need to review the 1999 constitution. Not through a referendum or a whole cell, but a piece meal approach through an executive Bill to the National Assembly under Senator Ken Nnamani as Semate President and Honourable Aminu Bello Masari as Speaker of the House of Representatives in 2007.

The idea of an executive Bill was in line with the thinking, that the 360 members of the House of Representatives and the 109 Senators properly and constitutionally represents the thirty-Six States of the Federation and the Federal Capital Territory, FCT therefore, as representatives of the people, elected to make laws for the good governance of the people, it would not be out of place to trust them that they could act in the overall best interest of the people by reviewing some sections of the 1999 constitution.

Suffice to say that the core and most important constitutional responsibility of the members of the National Assembly is to make laws for the good of the people as their representatives. Therefore, members of the national parliament were expected to subject the constitution review Bill to the due process of lawmaking which includes the first reading, second reading and passage.

But the special Bill that the constitution review is, would require the two-thirds approval of the thirty-six State Houses of Assembly after its passage by the National Assembly before it would be presented to the President for assent.

The sum of N1billion was approved for the first attempt by the National Assembly in 2007 under the chairmanship of former deputy Senate President, Senator Ibrahim Mantu and former deputy speaker, Honourable Austine Okpara as deputy chairman.

The Senator Mantu led committee hit its first challenge when chairman of the sub-committee on tenure of the elected executive public holders, Senator Umar Hambagda from Borno State was accused of smuggling the third term clause into his committee report, following an alarm raised by Senators Kanti Bello, Umar Tsauri and others.

For Senator Bello, “throughout the public hearings and all memorandum submitted to the sub-committee on amendments that would address the workings of the executive, nobody and no one mentioned the issue of tenure elongation from two terms of four years each to three terms of four years each, so where did Senator Hambagda get this devilish idea from,” he queried.

It is important to note that the first attempt at amending the 1999 constitution had over 100 other proposed amendments , some on the best way to diversify the economy, the trouble in the Niger Delta over derivation and many more. However, the proponents of the third term agenda, whose arrow heads were the former military officers in the Senate at the time, lead by former Senate President David Mark, Senator Tunde Ogbeha and other civilians in the Senate, also met a very strong resistance from the then President of Senate, Ken Nnamani and an ambitious Speaker Aminu Bello Masari, who was eyeing the governorship position of his home state of Katsina.

Recalls that aside the N1billion approved for the exercise, huge sums of monies were allegedly distributed to the tune of about N50million per Senator and N30million per any Member of the House of Representatives who was ready to back the project.

Former President Obasanjo was believed to be behind the plot as main beneficiary, although the Ogun born politician has repeatedly denied ever conceiving such idea or even asking anybody or agent to promote it, he can as well not claim that he was not aware of that development , but whatever that was, the then Senate President, Ken Nnamani announced the voting rules that nailed the project when he ruled that , “voting on this very important Bill would require that every Senator would stand up, introduce him or herself and vote openly and, the voting and all the debates on the second reading would be televised live, in other words, every senator will answer his or her father’s name.”

The Bill died a natural death on the floor of the Senate when the then Senate President put the question on whether the Bill be read a third time and none of the 109 senators approved of a second reading of the entire constitution amendment Bill. That development, naturally, by the rules of the Senate and the procedures for passage of Bills, was defeated and terminated further deliberations on it.

As equally contained in the standing rules of the House of Representatives regarding concurrence, the Masari led green chamber was left with only one option, which was to throw away the Bill, since it could not scale through third reading in the Senate.

The second attempt by the National Assembly to amend the 1999 constitution was under the leadership of former Senate President David Mark and former Speaker of the House of Representatives, Dimeji Bankole, under the chairman and co-chairmanships of Deputy Senate President Ike Ekweremadu and former deputy Speaker, Bayero Nafada.

Again, the sum of N1billion was provided for the exercise, while foreign donations received for the exercise in hard currencies and other logistics, were estimated to amount to another N1billion . This time, less contentious issues were slated for amendment, including the financial autonomy of the legislature both at the state and national, abolition of the Joint Account between the states and the local governments, creation of additional states, creation of more local governments, amendment of the Electoral Act and many other items.

Fortunately for the National Assembly, they were able to secure their financial autonomy through that particular amendment exercise amongst other silent issues, but unfortunately too, the State Assemblies rejected the clause that sort to give them financial autonomy that would have removed them from operating under the whims and caprices of their state governments but ironically saw the need for the National Assembly to be financially independent.

The third attempt at reviewing the 1999 constitution by the National Assembly was also under former Senate President, David Mark, of as chairman of the 7th National Assembly and former Speaker, Aminu Waziri Tambuwal.

It is important to note that attempts at a further review of the 1999 constitution during the 7th National Assembly, chaired by the Deputy Senate President, Ike Ekweremadu and former Deputy Speaker, Honourable Emeka Ihedioha, was equally not achieved to the extent that the amended sections were not signed into law by former President Goodluck Jonathan.

Another N1billion was provided for and expended by the two ad-hoc committees of the two chambers of the National Assembly and other donations and logistics provided by some foreign donors such as the United Nations Development Programme and others.

The last amendment was initially criticised by the leadership of the then Nigerian Bar Association, NBA, under the Presidency of Wole Oke , Senior Advocate of Nigeria, who maintained that the constitution could only be amended through a referendum , but his line of argument was cantered by the immediate past Speaker of the House of Representatives , Tambuwal, who upheld that ; “As a lawyer and lawmaker, referendum is certainly not an option in the review of the 1999 constitution.”

The last proposed amendment took a different procedure where members were sent to their various federal constituencies to organise town-hall meetings, where the various proposed amendments were voted upon by the people themselves.

Results of the people’s wishes were documented both manually and electronically, collated and sent to the thirty-six state Houses of Assembly for their verdict.

It is important to note that some of the issues canvassed for review at the last attempt at further amendment of the 1999 constitution were issues of states and local government creation, removal of immunity clause which the executive presently enjoys, retirement benefits for presiding officers of the National Assembly, state of the nation address by the President and many others.

The document was not assented to by the former President before the termination of the life of the 7th National Assembly, which automatically terminated the journey of that Bill as enshrined in the standing Rules of the two chambers of the National Assembly, meaning, the 8th Assembly would start the process afresh, should they desire to further review the 1999 constitution.

The bobby traps as the 8th Assembly begins process of a further constitution amendment

The two chambers of the 8th National Assembly have commenced in honest, another process of another constitution process that would likely turn out unsuccessful and waste of public funds and precious time for obvious reasons , although the start point has not changed from any previous attempt.

Recall that the Senate President, Senator Bukola Saraki, towards the end of 2015, inaugurated an ad-hoc committee for the purpose of a constitution amendment to be chaired by the Deputy Senate President, Ike Ekwremadu. It is the same with the Speaker Yakubu Dogara led House of Representatives where deputy Speaker, was named chair of the ad-hoc committee of the lower House for the purpose of amending the constitution.

The Speaker had announced that the House would dust the last proposed amendments and re-introduce to the President for his assent. This position of the House Speaker clearly underscores the need to cut cost without necessarily indulging in another money spending spree giving the precarious state of the nation’s economy and other compelling needs of Nigerians.

While Nigerians would commend the patriotism of the House Speaker to ensure prudent utilisation of funds, the obstacle before Speaker Dogara is the provision of the House Rules that terminates the journey of any bill, not just the constitution review bill which could not be completed in the life of any particular Assembly . But beyond this constraint, the patriotism of the Speaker to reduce cost would not tally with the emerging facts and challenges both on the economy, social-political welfare of the people, new agitations and particularly, the entire new order.

Suffice to say that the yearnings, aspirations and even agitations of Nigerians between 2011 and 2015 that warranted the kind of amendments proposed by the 7th National Assembly might not just be the same set of agitations and demands. Common amongst the agitations that got so much prominence during the last attempt at amending the constitution was the agitation and demands for more states and local governments by virtually all the sections and geo-political zones of the country.

Our investigations and the realities on ground today, show that it would make practically insensitive and misplacement of priority for any section or group of people to ask for more states when the current number of states can hardly pay workers’ salaries and economically nonviable.

This would be the same line of argument for those calling for creation of more local government areas. Another reality that would not tally with the previous proposed amendment would be the challenge of insecurity, which would effectively tend to place more premiums on creation and establishment of community or local policing over constitutional roles for traditional rulers. This new thinking can be aligned with the success recorded by the military fighting insurgency in the North East and the critical role played by the Civilian youths in curbing the menace.

The proposed amendments of the last Assembly clearly would not tally with the emerging developments , particularly that attention has being shifted to alterations that would strengthen the economy, strengthen government institutions charged with the responsibility of fighting corruption, empower agencies of government to create jobs and job opportunities, encourage local production, especially in the areas of agriculture and many more.

While it would be foolhardy to conclude that all the items slatted for amendment by the last Assembly may have lost their relevance and cannot fit into the new realities, it is equally important to stress that the new order, thinking and narratives, are such that the people of Nigeria would want to see amendments of the existing and other new Acts to take care of, not necessarily another constitution review. This presupposes that the position of the House Speaker to dust the last proposals might not be in the overall best interest of Nigerians and consequently posses another obstacle for the exercise.

There is also a school of thought who believes that the state of economy does not simply favour spending another whooping sum of N1billion for a fresh constitution review and their argument is simply that, the subsisting constitution is good enough to be allowed in the meantime. This school of thought believes that the National Assembly members can pursue other aspects of lawmaking, concentrate on oversight functions to ensure that leakages and recklessness are contained and, do more in supporting President Muhammadu Buhari to succeed in the fight against corruption.

The inauguration of the ad-hoc committee for further amendment of the 1999 constitution may have as well signalled the commencement of the exercise. However, continued criticisms of the policies of the All Progressives Congress, APC, by the deputy President of Senate, Ike Ekweremadu, who is the chairman of the ad-hoc committee of this all important exercise in the Senate, would certainly pose another obstacle for the exercise, which many believe should dwell rather on the strengthening the relevant provisions that would give legitimacy to the agenda of the current government, particularly in the areas of taxation, corruption and other salient issues.

While there are arguments in some quarters that by virtue of being a Senator, the Deputy Senate President is qualified to head the ad-hoc committee on constitution amendment irrespective of whichever political party he belongs to, it is also on record that for the first time in the history of all constitution amendments an opposition member is heading the constitution amendment committee, but above all, there is nowhere that it is stated in the process that the 1999 constitution prescribes for its amendment or, the standing rules of the Senate ,where it is stated that the ad-hoc committee on the review of the 1999 constitution must be chaired by a Deputy President of the Senate.

Our findings reveal that the members of the National Assembly, from all indications, might just be embarking on an exercise that would not see the light of day, giving the bobby traps already laid on its way.