The debate on the report of the Senate Committee on the Review of the 1999 Constitution began on Tuesday, with senators rejecting the proposal for a single tenure of six years for the President and governors.
Out of the 20 senators who spoke on the first day of the debate, none of them supported the tenure proposal. Instead, they described it as undemocratic and an opportunity for corruption.
Although not all were in support of the autonomy for local governments, majority of the senators spoke in favour of direct funding of local governments and the abolition of States and Local Governments Joint Account. But the agitation for a direct funding of the LGs was with a caution: that the funds to them should be closely monitored.
The issue of state police and immunity clause also came to the fore, with senators taking different positions.
The committee also made a supplementary proposal where it sought to alter the provision of Part 1 of the First Schedule in order to change the name of Egbado North and Egbado South local government areas to Yewa North and Yewa South LG areas in Ogun State.
The Chairman of the committee and Deputy President of the Senate, Ike Ekweremadu, while kick-starting the debate, said, "The committee recognises that this is not a request for local government creation but for a change of name of a local government, which can be regarded as an alteration in line with Section 9 of the Constitution."
The committee also recommended the name change for Afikpo South Local Government Area, now to be known as Edda Local Government Area; while Afikpo North is now to be called Afikpo Local Government Area. The supplementary report also contained an amendment of Section 285 of the Constitution to stipulate a time limit within which pre-election matters should be filed and determined so that they would not linger in courts for an unusual length of time.
He said,
"Accordingly, a new sub section(A)(i-iv) is provided as follows: 1A: "(i)Notwithstanding anything to the contrary in this Constitution, every pre-election matter shall be filed not later than seven days from the date of occurrence of the event, decision or action complained of in the suit.
"Sub sections i-iv stipulates how the court should deliver judgment within 180 days from the fling of the suit, while the appeal of that judgment should be done within 14 days and the court's decision should be disposed off within 60 days."
Senator Isa Galaudu was the first to criticise the six-year single tenure proposal, when he said Nigerians did not understand the proposal.
He said, "There is not enough justification for the proposal of a six-year single tenure for the President and Governors. It will encourage corruption and there will be so much tension and polarisation during the election."
He rejected the proposal to remove the prisons system from the Exclusive Legislative List, warning that there could be proliferation of arms and escalation of crisis in the country.
President of the Senate, David Mark, while closing the debates for the day, said voting will actually take place on Thursday, urging members to ensure they were present on Wednesday for their contributions.
Source: The Punch
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