Constitutional Amendment: It’s D-Day for Reps

By Levinus Nwabughiogu
Members of the House of Representatives are to vote today on critical
proposals to alter the provisions of the Constitution. The proposal to
grant autonomy to the country's local governments is undoubtedly the
most prominent of the several amendments articulated.
Toady is a decisive day on the on-going constitution amendment
exercise of the National Assembly. The House of Representatives will
vote on some clauses spotted in the 1999 constitution for either
outright removal or amendment.
There have been speculations and counter-speculations that most issues
raised by the House Adhoc Technical Committee that harmonized views of
Nigerians during the nationwide Constituency/Peoples session with
themembers late last year may have beenjettisoned.
Now, an air of apprehension and controversy is pervading the National
Assembly as the members themselves run amok over the exercise.
The Lawmakers had identified what many called "shortcomings" in the
constitution and resolved to fix them in order to give Nigerians a
constitution that will be fashioned after their yearnings. To make
good their resolve, the members of the Seventh Assembly early in the
year unanimously decided to go back to their various constituencies to
sample opinions of their constituents on the teething issues in the
constitution.
Indeed, various views were collated and eventually a Technical
Committee chaired by the Deputy Speaker, Hon. Emeka Ihedioha was set
up to harmonize the data.On July 4, 2013, the Deputy Speaker submitted
the report of the committee to the House.
Among the proposals included financial autonomy for Local Government
Councils, the propriety or otherwise of State Independent Electoral
Commissions (SIECs), autonomy for state legislatures, removal of
immunity clause for the president and governors.
The proposals also included first line charges for state Auditors-
General andJudiciary so that they derive their funds from the
states' consolidated revenue funds. Making the Office of
Accountant-General of the Federation different from the
Accountant-General of the Federal Government made the list.
There were also the proposal to separate the office of the
Attorneys-General of the Federation and those of the states from the
minister and commissioners for Justice respectively and accord
financial autonomy to the attorneys-general among others.
While everyone had anticipated votingon the issues last week,
surprisingly, the House at plenary, said it was short-handed with the
copies of the proposal and so couldn't continue withthe voting.
Consequently, the Speaker of the House, Rt. Hon. Aminu Waziru Tambuwal
during last Thursday's plenary told the members who deliberated the
proposals that voting will be Tuesday (today).
"Honorable members, what we have done today was to consider the
proposal clause by clause. We will voteon Tuesday, next week," the
Speaker said.Meanwhile, among the issues raised during the
consideration of the items, the autonomy of the Local Governmentwhich
will eventually erase the joint account with state governments took
the centre stage.
For over six hours the House session lasted, members took turns to air
their various opinions, espousing the necessity of financial autonomy
of local councils.
In accordance with the recommendation, any local government council
which is not democratically elected in line with theprovisions of
section 7 of the constitution shall not receive revenue allocation
from the Federation Account.
According to Section 7 (1) "The system of local government by
democratically elected local government councils is under this
Constitution guaranteed; and accordingly, the Government of every
State shall, subject to section 8 of this Constitution, ensure their
existence under a Law which provides for the establishment, structure,
composition, finance and functions of such councils."
Against this backdrop, the House commenced debate on the proposal
shortly after the introduction of the proposed amendments to that
section of the constitution by the House Leader Hon. Mulikat
Akande-Adeola.
In his debate on the proposal, Hon Samson Osagie (ACN, Edo State)
stated that autonomy for local governments was in tune with the
provisions of the amendment being proposed in the constitution and in
line with the provisions of section 8 sub (1) of the constitution.
Also, Representative Aisha Modibo from Adamawa, was of the opinion
thatany local council that is not democratic"shall not be recognized
by the authorities and shall not exercise any function."
According to her, local council administration "is a vehicle for rural
transformation and delivery of social services".
But Hon. Dan Asiquo from Akwa Ibom gave a new twist to the issue. In
his view, two issues which bother on the autonomy of funds and
administration of the LG were fundamental.
He said: "There are two things in the issue. Can you give financial
autonomy to LG that does not have administrative autonomy?
With these, the Speaker of the House, Alhaji Aminu Waziri Tambuwal
mandated the Technical Committee to take note of the views saying, "we
have to realign before we vote."
The expectations today
From every indication, it appears that the members will uphold what
most ofthem had referred to as the peoples wish by granting financial
autonomy to local councils. A few of them who spoke exclusively to
Vanguard confirmed that. But what is not known now is whether the
required two-thirdmajority will be gotten to pass the items especially
now that the, Senate had on Tuesday last week jettisoned the proposal
thereby dashing the hopes of the councils to boost their income.
Tambuwal
We'll back council auitonomy — Gbajabiamila
All I can tell you is the majority of the members of the House are for
local government autonomy but whether they will get the required
two-third, I have no idea. "For me and some other people, immunity
should remain because there is a reason for it. It is notan absolute
immunity. The governors and the President can be sued when they leave
office."
It is the position of the constituents — Jagaba
To Hon. Adams Jagaba, Kaduna, autonomy for councils "was the position
of our constituents. So, you cannot vote against what they want. We
went to our constituencies but the senators did at the zonal level.
When you do things at the zonal level, you will definitely have a
different result. But we did our own constituency by constituency
everybody came and participated. But I want to assure you that it is
the position of our people andwe are not changing that."
On the immunity clause
"Well, the point here is that all the matters presented there were the
decision of our constituents. We didn't do anything out of selfish
reasons. We have our data collected by every member. That is the
position of the people. Now, if we go against that, at the end of the
day we may end up not being the representatives of the people. But if
truly we are, we have no choice than to adopt what they said."
NLC/TUC banks on Reps on retention of minimum wage in Exclusive List
Having had their hope dashed by Senators who voted for the removal of
minimum wage from the Exclusive List,the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC)
and the Trade Union Congress (TUC) in a joint Press Conference in
Abuja said they were banking on the House of Representatives to see
them through.
"We call on the House of Representatives as the last bastion of our
representative governance to side with the people, as they have always
done, to ensure that the minimum wage remains in the Exclusive list to
protect poor working families against the vagaries of thoughtless and
rabid neo-liberal economic policies."The politics involved
This might not be the first time financial autonomy and the
Independence of the State Legislature will be cropping up in the event
of the constitutional amendments. Such had happened before. But heavy
politics has always accompanied it. This, almost, always emanates from
the State Governors who would not want to lose money by giving up the
joint account. Already, speculations arerife that the Governors have
started lobbying the State Legislatures whose votes are expected the
put paid on theissues should the House eventually favour it. But where
the pendulum would finally swing to is definitely a question of time.