The Senate, yesterday, amended a section of
the constitution to restrict a vice president
or deputy governor who serves out the
tenure of his or her principal in office, in the
event of death or permanent incapacitation,
to one fresh term of four years.
The bill tagged, “Restriction of tenure of the
president and governor Bill’ garnered 88
votes when it was considered. The Bill seeks
to restrict a person who was sworn in as
president or governor to complete the term
of the elected president/governor from
contesting for the same office for more than
one term.
However, despite calls from various ethnic,
religious and political leaders that the
country should be restructured, the Senate
rejected the Devolution of Powers Bill.
Using electronic voting, and with 46 for and
48 against, Senators voted against the
proposal, which had been challenged on
Tuesday by Adamu Aliero, who argued it
should not stand without reviewing the
revenue sharing formula to give more
money to states. If it had succeeded, the Bill
would have effectively set restructuring in
motion. The bill had sought to alter the
Second Schedule, Part I & II to move certain
items to the Concurrent Legislative List to
give more legislative powers to states.
It had also intended to delineate the extent
to which the federal legislature and state
assemblies could legislate on the items that
have been moved to the Concurrent
Legislative List.
The red chamber threw out the contentious
Bill on resource control, voted to abrogate
state/local government joint accounts and
guarantee existence of democratically
constituted councils. It also passed the bills
seeking to include former National Assembly
presiding officers in the Council of states, to
ensure ministerial nominees sent to it
include their portfolios and are sent within
30 days of inauguration of the president
and of governors for states and for INEC to
deregister political parties over failure to
secure an elective seat, independent
candidacy, abolition of state Independent
Electoral Commission and autonomy for
state Assemblies. The controversial
reduction of age qualification Bill, which
was initially rejected by lawmakers during
their retreat in Lagos, also scaled the hurdle.
On the whole, 29 of the 33 bills that were
considered succeeded.
Other bills shot down were those on state
creation and boundary adjustment,
citizenship and indigeneship and Land Use
Act.
Authorisation of Expenditure Bill, which
seeks to alter sections 82 and 122 of the
Constitution to reduce the period within
which the president or governor may
authorise the withdrawal of monies from
the consolidated revenue fund in the
absence of an appropriation act from six
months to three months also got the nod.
Also passed were financial autonomy for
state legislatures, distributable pool account,
local government and the legislature bill.
The Senate rejected a clause which had
provided a 35 per cent affirmative action for
women at the federal level and 20 per cent
at the state level.
It also passed the political parties and
electoral matters, presidential assent, time
frame for submitting the names of
ministerial or commissioners nominees,
appointment of minister from the FCT,
change of names of some local government
councils, independent candidature and the
police bills.
If the political parties and electoral matters
passes the final hurdle, INEC would have the
power to de-register any political party that
fails to win any elective office.
Bills on the separation of the Office of
Accountant-General, Office of the Auditor-
General, Separation of the Office of the
Attorney-General of the Federation and of
the state from the office of the minister or
commissioner for justice, judiciary,
determination of pre-election matters and
civil defence bills were also debated and
passed.
Similarly, procedure for presidential veto in
constitutional alteration, removal of certain
Acts from the Constitution, investments and
securities tribunal, deletion of the NYSC
Decree from the Constitution, deletion of the
Public Complaints Commission Act from the
Constitution and deletion of state
Independent Electoral Commission were
considered and passed.
The conclusion of the constitution review
exercise is coming 19 months after the
Senate constituted its Constitution Review
Committee, which was headed by the
Deputy President of the Senate, Ike
Ekweremadu.
President of the Senate, Bukola Saraki, who
presided, said with the exercise, the upper
chamber has laid a solid foundation for
future generations.
