In a surprise move, Senate shuts down restructuring

• Lawmakers reject bill on devolution of powers
• Reject resource control, okay immunity for members
• Endorse LG autonomy, scrap state, LG joint accounts
• Afenifere, Ohaneze condemn Senate action

In what can be referred to as anti-climax of agitation by proponents of national questions, the Senate on Wednesday doused all expectations of restructuring the country through devolution of power and resource control as it shut down Bills to that effect on constitution amendment.

Majority of Senators during voting session on Constitution Amendment, rejected bill number 3 on devolution of power which sought to alter the Second Schedule Part I and II to move certain items to the Concurrent Legislative List from the Exclusive legislative list.

It is instructive to note that 46 Senators voted in favour of power devolution while 73 senators voted against the bill, thus unable to make up the two-thirds majority for the Bill to scale through 95 of the Senators who participated in the voting exercise all throughout the exercise.

The Senate also rejected Bill 32 which deals with “deletion of the Land Use Act from the Constitution”, thereby dealing a deadly blow to the clamour for resource control.

The Bill had just 46 positive votes while 44 voted against it. The clamour for women emancipation also suffered a great set back as the Senate killed all the bills, proposed to give women some headway in elective and appointive position.

The Senate during the voting process rejected the clamour for Affirmative Action which would have seen women constitutionally having 35 per cent seats reserved for them as it only attracted 61 while those who voted against it were 35 in number.

The need to reserve 20 per cent of seats in the State Executive Council as well as elective positions at the state level was also defeated as 49 Senators voted for it while 43 voted against it.

Attempt to grant freedom to women on choice of indigenship by altering Section 25 of the constitution to guarantee a married woman the right to chose her indigeneship by birth or by marriage was defeated as it garnered only 49 votes while 49 voted against it as well.

But the Senate, however, made a major change to the process of alteration of the constitution as it unanimously voted in favour of the Bill seeking to remove the power of the president over constitution amendment.

The Senate in a vote of 92 against 4, passed the bill seeking to whittle down the power of the president to veto the amendment to the constitution.

The parliament also agreed to the idea of altering the membership of the council of state by adding former Presidents of the senate and speakers of the House of Representatives as the Bill seeking to amend the Third Schedule of the constitution was passed with outstanding 95 votes without any dissent.

The Senate also approved with a vote of 93 votes, one against and one abstention, the Bill which reduced the power of president to spend money from the consolidated revenue funds in the absence of an appropriation act from six months to three months.

The president and state governors are also to henceforth, lay their respective budget mandatorily within a minimum of 90 days before the end the fiscal year.

Freedom from oppressive state government was approved for the local government administration as series of Bills to that effect were approved by the Senate.

Bill number 5 which seek to alter Section 162 of the constitution to abrogate the state joint local government accounts and empower each local government to maintain its own special account into which all allocations due to the Local government councils shall be paid from the Federation Account was passed with a vote of 84 in favour, 8 opposing and one abstaining from the vote.

Bill number 6 which proposed a guaranteed tenure of three years for Local government authority was passed with a vote of 88 in favour, 7 against while one person abstained from the vote.

But the Bill seeking to cancel the appointment of caretaker committee for local government by state governors and as well prevent such appointees from accessing funds meant for the local government was defeated with just 47
Senators voting in its favour while 48 voted against it.

Though States House of Assemblies have in the past constitution amendment rejected financial autonomy proposed, the Senate however, once again adopted the proposal for Financial autonomy for the States Assemblies.

With a vote of 90 to 5, the Senate passed the financial freedom Bill for the State Assemblies, and also granted them the right to funding from the Consolidated Revenue Fund of the state.

Appointees by the president and state governors for cabinet offices are now to be submitted to the Federal and State parliaments within 30 days of taking oath of office by the affected President and State Governor. It was passed with a vote of 75 to 19.

Portfolios to be given to such appointees are now mandatory and they are to be attached to the nomination lists as well. It was passed with a vote of 78 to 16.

The Senate also voted for inclusion of independent candidates in all elections with a view to expanding the political space. 82 senators voted for it, while 5 voted against and 3 abstained.

Also, 89 Senators voted for the separation of the office of Accountant General of the Federal Government from the office of the Accountant General of the Federation by altering Section 84 of the constitution.

Besides, the Office of the Auditor-General of the federation and the states were given independence by placing them on first line charges in the consolidated revenue funds of the federation and the states. It was done with a vote of 95 unanimous votes.

The same vote was produced in separating the office of Minister of Justice and state commissioners for Justice from that of the Attorney-General of the Federation and that of the State.

Bill number 9 which seek to empower the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to delist non-performing registered political parties was passed with a vote of 90 without any dissent.

This was achieved with the passage of the Bill that altered section 134 and 179 and section 225.
Henceforth, any political party that doesn’t win any seat at Presidential, Governorship, Local Government or a seat in the National Assembly can now be delisted by INEC.

Bill 16 which seeks to restrict a person who was sworn-in as President or Governor to complete the term of the elected President from contesting for the same office for more than one term was passed also. In this case, 88 senators voted for it while only one voted against it.

The Senate also passed the Bill on Civil Defence, which seeks to reflect the establishment and core functions of Corps. The amendment sought includes national security and civil defence as an item in the exclusive legislative list under the second schedule of the constitution. 79 Senators voted in support of the Bill on Civil Defence.

The Bill on Procedure for overriding Presidential Veto in Constitutional alteration, which seeks to provide procedure for passing a constitution alteration, Bill in the absence of the President also scaled through with 94 votes against 4.

With the passage of the Bill, every amendment approved by the National Assembly with corollary support from the state legislators will become law through even without the assent of the President.

The Bill seeking to set timelines for determination of election disputes also scaled through as Senators Voted 97 in support.

Another amendment proposed on age qualification by altering section 65, 106, 131, and 177 of the constitution to reduce the age of qualification for offices of the president, governors, Senate and members of the House of Representatives also got full endorsements of the Senate.

With the passage, anyone who has attained the age of 25 years can contest election into state house of assembly as well as the House of Representatives while anyone who is 35 years old can contest into the office of the president as well as the senate.

The NYSC Scheme established by a military has been deleted from the Constitution through a Bill to that effect. The essence is to subject the scheme to regular process of amendment.

The bill to seeking to alter the constitution to delete the Public Complaints Commission Act from the constitution for it to be a subject of regular process of amendment also enjoyed the endorsement of the Senate.

The Senate also voted to delete the National Securities Act from the constitution in order for the Act to undergo regular process of amendment.

In all, the Senate passed 29 out of 33 bills on amendment of the constitution, while the next stage of amendment is now in the court of State Legislators as their concurrence are now required to make the Amendment Bills become laws.

But faulting the rejection of restructuring through the rejection of devolution of powers, the pan Yoruba social-cultural organisation, Afenifere, lashed out at the Senate over its decision to shoot down the bill for the devolution of power from the federal to states as part of the ongoing constitution review, describing the action as a disservice to the people of the country.

Speaking on behalf of the group, its publicity secretary, Yinka Odumakin, said, “the Senate had the responsibility to save Nigeria from the brink, to put this country back on track, but they frittered that away on the altar of insensitivity. The senators majored in minors today, they dealt with minor issues but left fundamental issues and therefore they have set this country on the part of auto restructuring and their names will be written in ignominy when the history of this country is written.

“But they have set this country on an irreversible part to auto restructuring, they have given room to all the centrifugal forces to up their games, because the last hope that the people had is this constitutional review that they are doing, now that they have failed woefully this way, they have put this country on the part of auto restructuring.

“Nigeria will restructure itself, because things cannot go on like this, so the country will auto restructure without them and they will become history when that is done.”

Also reacting to the development, the National Publicity Secretary of Ohaneze Ndigbo, Chuks Ibegbu, described the rejection of devolution of power to states by the Senate as legislative busy-body.

He said the thinking of Nigerians is that power should be devolved to states.

“The thinking of ordinary Nigerians is that power should be devolved to the federating units. What the Senate has done is good but you know this has been resolved in the National Conference. We should stop deceiving ourselves.

“All the National Assembly is embarking upon is legislative busybody. Let the National Assembly get that document
and study it. If half of that document is implemented, Nigeria would be an Eldorado”, he said.

He said that concentration of power encourages corruption.

“As long as there is concentration of power at the centre, corruption can never stop. We have been talking about restructuring. What we need is structural and physical restructuring.

“For instance; we have 5 states and 95 LGAs in the South East. Everything is shared based on states and LGAs.

“The Igbos in particular are losing more than N4 billion annually because of our deficiency in the number of states and LGAs”, he said.