The National Assembly’s Joint Committee on the Review of the 1999 Constitution has split the State Joint Local Government Account created under Section 162 (6) of the 1999 Constitution to grant full financial autonomy to the third tier of the Nigeria Government, Saturday PUNCH has learnt.
The proposal is part of the ongoing amendments to the Constitution.
According to the Deputy Speaker of the House of Representatives and Chairman of the House Committee on Constitution Review, Ahmed Wase, his committee alone received 178 memoranda with 1,980 specific recommendations after conducting public hearings across the geopolitical zones of the country in 2021.
On Friday, the National Assembly held a retreat with the Conference of Speakers of State Legislatures and Clerks of State Houses of Assembly ahead of transmission of amendment bills passed by the federal parliament to the state legislatures. The transmission has been scheduled for the end of this month.
In his address at the opening session, Wase noted that the thematic areas include issues bordering on local government administration and autonomy, the legislature, judicial reform, state creation, state police, devolution of powers, women and vulnerable groups, strengthening of institutions, good governance, political parties and electoral matters, traditional institution, Federal Capital Territory administration, fundamental human rights and national security.
The Deputy Speaker partly said, “Casting our minds back to some of the salient points we raised at the inauguration of this committee at the House of Representatives in October of 2020, we stated that the need and importance of reviewing our extant Constitution cannot be overemphasised, as a vast majority of Nigerians consider the 1999 Constitution a product of military exigency and that the reference to ‘We the people’ in the Constitution does not truly represent them. A lot of Nigerians have, therefore, yearned for a crucial review.
“During this first batch of the review exercise, the committee in the House of Representatives considered 62 bills out of which 26 bills were recommended for harmonisation with the Senate. Of the 62 bills, eight bills were rejected, 25 bills were retained with modifications and the consideration of three bills was deferred.
“We have worked tirelessly to engage, negotiate, debate, lobby, review and persuade in order to reflect the various competing and contrasting aspirations of Nigerians of different leanings and backgrounds. One thing we are sure of is that no one has been left behind. We have aggregated all manners of proposals, sorted them out to meet the constitutional guidelines and criteria and have ultimately harmonized positions after lengthy debates and majority votes on several critical issues.”
In his address, Omo-Agege cited Section 9 of the Constitution and the critical role of the state legislatures in Constitution alteration.
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