Senator Gbenga Obadara was a member of the Senate in the 7th National Assembly. He represented Ogun Central Constituency from 2011 to 2015. He bares his mind on the planned constitutional review and many more in this interview with
GBENGA AKINFENWA.

What is the essence of constitutional review by successive administrations in the country?
AS you know, our democracy is still at the teething stage, and until the representatives of the people have opportunity to seat and prepare the constitution for the destiny of this country, there’ll always be regular changes.

Look at the issue of Kogi State Governorship election; you would see that the constitution did not make any provision for what happened, when the leading candidate died. What happened was not envisaged. There would have been something to prevent such occurrence. You’ll see that the case would end up in court. If you look at the changes we are talking about in the constitution you’ll see that there are some areas with lacunas that are militating against their full implementation. And the review can only come if the representatives of the people seat and inquire from the masses what their interests are.

What I expect government to do now is to check back the document, it is either they give it to the National Assembly, because it is the true representative of the people across board that came through election. Nobody can change the constitution without the input of the National Assembly. Some talked about the National conference report, while others were speaking on the NASS, let them study the constitutional conference report. Let them pick the ones that are useful to Nigeria and discard those that are not useful.

Aside from patriotism, what is the attraction, is it the budget allocated for the purpose or there is more to it?
All along, there has always been constant review of the constitution, which is part of the budget of the National Assembly. Monies are being ceded to that committee every four years (Assembly years). The answer is neither here or there, why, because most of the reports don’t always see the light of the day. It is a pity that the executive arm of government always has a notion that the National Assembly is their appendage, which is not true.

The executive always believes that the National Assembly is just playing advisory role and giving mere suggestions. That was the position of the former Special Adviser to President Goodluck Jonathan on Media and Publicity, who claimed that the motions and bill passed by the legislators are for mere advisory purpose, which is not right.

If Nigerians elected 360 House of Representatives members and 109 Senators, who worked on a motion and somebody described it as mere advisory, it means they don’t need the NASS to operate, but if we are able to do our job through true separation of power, you’ll see that the NASS have three functions to play-making of laws; oversight functions and appropriation. If those three things were done with the mindset of attaining success, I am sure Nigeria would be greater than what we are talking about here.

I can only say here that the money allocated for constitutional review is not worth it. You cannot just go there for four years, prepare a document and at the end of the day the president would not sign it, that is the problem.

What is your assessment of past constitution review exercise?
I can tell you that the 7th Assembly Constitutional Review Committee did a wonderful job, the only problem was the executive, when it became paranoid, they were afraid of themselves, the executive refused to sign.