The Senate has lamented that the governors are blocking the passage of the constitutional amendment bill across 25 states while only 11 states have passed it.
The Deputy Senate President and Chairman of the Senate Adhoc Committee on Constitution Review, Ovie Omo-Agege, disclosed that only 11 states had passed bills, while the Conference of Nigerian Speakers had vowed that the remaining states would not pass the bills until the four bills proposed by the state houses of assemblies were passed.
The 11 states that have passed their bills include Abia, Akwa Ibom, Anambra, Delta, Edo, Kaduna, Katsina, Kogi, Lagos, Ogun and Osun states.
Omo-Agege, at a joint conference between the Senate and House of Representatives, further disclosed that a letter was received from the Speakers’ body saying the remaining states would not act on the bills unless the National Assembly passes the four new bills they proposed.
The bills proposed by the state houses of assembly include; bills to establish state police; establish State Judicial Council; streamline the procedure for removing the presiding officers of state houses of assembly, and institutionalise legislative bureaucracy in the 1999 Constitution.
Omo-Agege, however, alleged that the governors were in charge of the letter which he described as the “hands of Esau and voice of Jacob,” saying state governors were behind the action of the speakers.
He noted that the National Assembly arrived at the 44 constitutional amendment bills after several meetings and engagements with the state houses of assembly.
Meanwhile, there were agitations at the press conference when journalists reminded the Deputy Senate President that at no time did the Senate consider the bill for state police, let alone vote on it.
Omo-Agege, however, cleared the air by stating that the bill was killed at the committee level even before it got to the Senate since the members of the committee voted it down.
Also, the President of the Nigerian Labour Congress, Ayuba Wabba; the National President of the National Union of Local Government Employees, called on state governors to stop interfering with the legislative activities of state assemblies.
