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Lasun heads panel on Constitution review

By Terhemba Daka, Abuja
18 December 2015   |   2:48 am
Speaker of the House of Representatives, Yakubu Dogara, has named the Deputy Speaker, Sulaimon Yussff Lasun, Chairman of a 47-man ad-hoc committee for the review of the nation’s constitution. Recall that attempt by the National Assembly to facilitate a further review of the 1999 Constitution did not yield the desired result, as former President Goodluck…

YUSUF Sulaiman Lasun

Speaker of the House of Representatives, Yakubu Dogara, has named the Deputy Speaker, Sulaimon Yussff Lasun, Chairman of a 47-man ad-hoc committee for the review of the nation’s constitution.

Recall that attempt by the National Assembly to facilitate a further review of the 1999 Constitution did not yield the desired result, as former President Goodluck Jonathan withheld his assent over concerns on the processes adopted in arriving at certain amendments to the document.

Both Houses of Parliament have separately amended their rules, with the intention to resurrect the document, clean it up and re-present it for adoption by their committees of the whole, and subsequently transmit it to incumbent President Mohammadu Buhari for assent, without going through the entire process of public hearings any more.

2 Comments

  • Author’s gravatar

    It is always amazing that Nigerians always want to do a wholesale review of a subsisting constitution! The 1999 Constitution is a written document with which the Federal Republic of Nigeria has been operating. The Constitution as it is, spells out the way and manner in which any of the provisions could be amended! Conducting a wholesale review of the constitution is tantamount to pulling down a house in which families are residing! You do not do that, but you renovate the house one room at a time or you redo the kitchen the bathroom the bedroom to take care of the needs of the residents. If the National Assembly embarks on a wholesale review of the constitution and thinks that a presidential accent to such a review will modify the 1999 Constitution, they must be joking and jokers do not make laws for the Federal Republic. We have over 400 members in the National Assembly and each honorable member could take a provision that requires amendment and do that in accordance with the provisions of the 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic, in fact the elected members of the National Assembly subscribed to an oath to protect, preserve and defend the constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria before they are confirmed as a member of the National Assembly. How can you want to scrap the laws that established your position if not in the way the fundamental laws allow its provisions to be so amended. Let us learn to be law abiding citizens of Nigeria not law breakers. Setting up a committee to rewrite, review or otherwise in a manner contrary to the provisions of the 1999 constitution is not the way to go in amending the constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria! May God bless this Federal Republic of Nigeria and its people.

    • Author’s gravatar

      Try as much as they may, they cannnot avoid the possibility of eventually calling for the reports of the last national conference. Its a historic indispensable yoke on their neck