Senate commences review of Laws of the Federation of Nigeria
By Tunde Opalana
The Senate on Tuesday commenced move to revise the Laws of the Federation of Nigeria (LFN) which has remain unreviewed for almost two decades.
It, has therefore, mandated it’s committee on Judiciary, Human Rights and Legal Matters to immediately interface with the Office of the Attorney General of the Federation to initiate the process of revising the laws of the Federation of Nigeria.
Note that the compilation of the Laws of the Federation is carried out under the authority of the Attorney General of the Federation , subject to the approval of the National Assembly through an Act.
The mandate followed a motion sponsored by Senator Kaka Shehu Lawal Borno Central on the urgent need to commence revision of the laws of the Federation of Nigeria which has remained unrevised for almost two decades.
Senator Kaka Shehu Lawal in his lead debate said the last time the Laws of the Federation were revised was in 2004.
Senator Shehu Lawal said laws that were made since after 2004 revision have remained unknown in the law books of the Federation that has lasted for about 20 years and needed to be reviewed and be included in the laws of the Federation.
Senator Shehu Kaka Lawal expressed worry that the continued non revision of the laws of the Federation of Nigeria has not only left numerous statutes out of the compilation but also retained many repealed statutes with attendant confusion and other negative impacts.
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He showed concern that the non – compilation of the several Federal statutes leads to dearth of knowledge of many existing laws on the part of Nigerians, especially students, Lecturers, researchers, lawyers, legislators and Judges and other negative impacts.
In the presentation, Sen. Kaka said “the Laws of the Federation of Nigeria 2014 was subsequently approved by the National Assembly through the Revised Edition (Laws of the Federation of Nigeria ) Act, 2007, which repealed the Revised Edition Act 1990.
“Aware that the statutes in the Laws of the Federation of Nigeria 2004 were enacted in different years before and after Nigeria’s independent even though they are all cited as “LFN 2004”, which consists of 16 volumes, with each volume being made up of several statutes organized in an alphabetic order.
“Also aware that there was an attempt to revise the Laws of the Federation of Nigeria in 2010 but this effort had no legal l framework of the National Assembly approving it”.
Addressing news men after plenary Senator Kaka l said the laws were long overdue and it will be at the interest of democracy to commence the revision process without further delay.
The session which was presided over by the senate president, Senator Godswill Akpabio resolved to give such further directives as deemed expedient and appropriate in the circumstances.
