The Senate on Tuesday rejected autonomy for local government areas as well as a six- year single term for the President, Vice President, Governors and Deputy Governors.
They also agreed that the President’s approval was no longer required to pass amendments made to the Constitution. These were among decisions taken at the end of voting on the 32 clauses in the proposed Fourth Alteration to the 1999 Constitution.
On the proposed six- year single tenure for the President and Governors as well as the granting of direct funding to local governments, only 14 out of a total of 101 senators present, voted in favour; 86 rejected it while only one abstained.
As a result, the proposal to amend Section 137 of the Constitution, which would have disqualified current public officeholders from benefitting from the six-year single tenure, failed.
Senators, who voted electronically for about four hours, also overwhelmingly rejected the recommendation to remove the Land Use Act, the National Youth Service Corps, Public Complaints Commission and National Security Agencies Act from the Constitution.
In passing the amendment of Section 9, the Senate inserted a new subsection (3a) which states that “for the purpose of altering the provisions of this Constitution, the assent of the President shall not be required.”
It then voted for a new subsection (3b) and (3c) giving the National Assembly the powers to propose a new Constitution and the procedures involved in producing an entirely new Constitution for Nigeria.
Railways and issues of Road Safety also found their way into the Concurrent List, indicating that states can now own their own railway lines.
But the Senate voted against the proposal to remove the Prisons from the Exclusive list in order to allow states operate their own prisons.
The explanations by the Leader of the Senate, Senator Victor Ndoma-Egba (SAN), that it was necessary to move the justice system away from where it was currently, did not appeal to his colleagues000.
Only 63 votes were garnered instead of the 73 votes required to devolve the powers to operate prisons to state.
The aspirations of the indigenes of the FCT to have a mayor for Abuja also failed as only 57 senators voted in support, 16 votes less than what was require to pass it.
The Senate also voted to make bills not returned nor assented to by the President within 30 days to automatically become law as in the alteration of Section 58 of the Constitution.
It states, “Where the President neither signifies that he assents or that he withholds assent, the bill shall at the expiration of 30 days become law.”
The same applies to bills sent to the state governors from the Houses of Assembly of the different states.
The Senate also rejected the separation of the Office of the Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice as well as the Attorney General of a state and the Commissioner for Justice as captured in the amendments in Sections 150 and 195 of the Constitution.
Voting on a clause seeking to remove Section 29(4b) from the Constitution took a religious dimension when a former governor of Zamfara State, Senator Ahmed Sani, raised a point of order to draw attention to the implication of removing the sub section Section.
via nigerianeye
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