The National Union of Local Government Employees is set to hold protests across the 36 states of the federation to push for local government autonomy as the National Assembly will today (Tuesday) transmit passed bills seeking to amend parts of the 1999 Constitution to the state Houses of Assembly, The PUNCH has reliably learnt.
The Speakers of the 36 state assemblies are expected to meet in Ibadan this week on which of the amendments to support. However, some governors, including the Chairman of the Nigerian Governors’ Forum, Kayode Fayemi of Ekiti State, have already rejected autonomy for the local governments.
Speaking to The PUNCH on Monday, the National President of NULGE, Hakeem Ambali, said any legislator who voted against local government autonomy would not win re-election next year.
Ambali said members of NULGE had been deployed across the states to press their demands.
“Our campaigns have started. There is no rest until we achieve local government autonomy. I am aware that the Speakers will be meeting in Ibadan during the week. We are continuing our lobby and we are launching operation ‘Occupy the Assembly’. A vote for autonomy will signal victory for you and if you vote against it, kick your aspiration goodbye. That is why we also attended the APC congress,” he said.
It was learnt on Monday that the Clerk to the National Assembly, Mr Ojo Amos, would today (Tuesday) meet with clerks to state Houses of Assembly in Abuja, during which the bills would be presented to them.
A top source in the National Assembly told our correspondent that Amos was to sensitise his counterparts from the states to the constitution amendment process.
“I can confirm to you that the Clerk to the National Assembly will meet with the state clerks tomorrow (Tuesday). The bills will be given to them during the meeting,” the official said.
The National Assembly had on March 1, 2022, voted on the 68 amendments recommended by the Joint Senate and House of Representatives’ Special Ad Hoc Committee on the Review of the 1999 Constitution.
To amend a clause in the constitution, two-third or four-fifth majority of each of the Senate and the House has to approve the amendment after which it will be transmitted to the state Houses of Assembly, where two-third or 24 out of the 36 of them have to concur.
One of the bills already passed by the federal parliament is to “abrogate the state joint local government account and provide for a special account into which shall be paid all allocations due to local government councils from the Federation Account and from the government of the state.”
Another bill also seeks to establish the local governments as a tier of the government and guarantee their democratic existence and tenure.
A separate bill will “provide for the financial independence of state Houses of Assembly and state judiciary.”
The Speaker of the House of Representatives, Femi Gbajabiamila, had said another batch of amendment bills would be presented for votes by the end of April.
Gbajabiamila is billed to meet with leaders of women groups that had laid siege to the main gate of the National Assembly complex ever since the lawmakers voted against gender related bills in the ongoing amendments to the 1999 Constitution.
The Speaker called for the meeting at the plenary last Wednesday.
Gbajabiamila had last Tuesday drafted the Majority Leader, Alhassan Ado-Doguwa and the Deputy Majority Whip, Nkeiruka Onyejeocha, to address the protesters, who insisted on talking to the leadership of the National Assembly before leaving the gate.
Reporting back to the House at the plenary last Wednesday, Ado-Doguwa said the delegation told the protesters that the parliament would address their grievances within two weeks.
Gbajabiamila, however, noted that the timeframe would depend on when the House’s Special Ad Hoc Committee on the Review of the 1999 Constitution, chaired by the Deputy Speaker, Ahmed Wase, would lay a report on the second batch of amendment bills.
The PUNCH had reported that the three bills, which failed to pass among the first batch of bills, had been re-represented to the committee.
Gbajabiamila had said, “We don’t want to take this in isolation; we will take it together with other reports.
“We might be going on Ramadan break soon but Honourable Nkeiruka Onyejeocha, please arrange a meeting with the representatives of the women with me in the office next week.”
The House had on March 8, 2022, reversed itself on three of the five gender related bills, identified as bills 36, 37 and 38, that failed to pass.
Gbajabiamila had noted that the three bills would be included in the second batch of amendment bills to be considered, saying the House would “relist them on the next set of amendments coming up, I believe, within the next four weeks. They will come again to vote.”
Bill 36 seeks to “expand the scope of citizenship by registration” by allowing a foreigner – male or female – who marries a Nigerian to become a Nigerian citizen.
Bill 37 seeks to “provide for affirmative action (35 per cent of leadership slots) for women in political party administration.”
While Bill 38 is to “provide criteria for qualification to become an indigene of a state in Nigeria,” such that a woman from a state, who is married to a man from another state and lives with her husband for five years, becomes an indigene of the man’s state and is eligible to occupy public offices in her husband’s state.
Those dropped are Bill 35 to “provide for special seats for women in the national and state Houses of Assembly;” and Bill 68, which gives women a quota in the federal and state executive councils or ministerial and commissionership seats.
The Senate had, however, said there was no going back on the rejected bills. ,,
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