The Deputy President of the Senate, Ike Ekweremadu, has said the failure of attempt to amend the 1999 Constitution in 2015 was not National Assembly’s fault.
Ekweremadu stated this at the opening of a two-day retreat on the Review of the 1999 Constitution on Friday in Lagos.
It was organised by the National Assembly.
Ekweremadu, who attributed the failure of the process to non-assent by former President Goodluck Jonathan, explained that the Fourth Alteration Bill successfully scaled through all legislative processes.
He said the bill went through national and zonal public hearings, received wide inputs from Nigerians and also got inputs from a cross section of critical stakeholders.
He added that the outcome of the work was duly processed and transmitted to the 36 states Houses of Assembly, while major proposals received the acceptance of at least 24 Houses of Assembly.
Ekweremadu added: “The National Assembly reliably gathered that former President Goodluck Jonathan assented to the Fourth Alteration Bill.
“We were surprised to get a letter from the President stating clearly that he was returning the Bill, but failing to attach the original Bill being returned.
“The National Assembly was dragged to the Supreme Court by the Attorney-General of the Federation to prevent us from overriding the presidential veto.
“The Supreme Court later asked us to meet and resolve our differences out of court, which we did and returned the Bill to the Presidency for approval.
“But it reneged on signing the Bill before the expiration of the “resident’s tenure.
“While we carried on with all patriotic consideration, little did we know that they were buying time.”
Ekweremadu said the legislature had learnt its lesson from events that surrounded the non-assent to the fourth alteration bill.
He, however, assured Nigerians that the ongoing resumed review of the Constitution would be concluded in December 2016 ahead of the general elections.
He explained that reviewing the Constitution would reduce “contamination of an otherwise patriotic exercise by personal, political, and other narrow considerations.
“Although we lost the water in the last constitution amendment exercise, the pot, being the Fourth Alteration Bill, is still intact.
“The document serves as the formwork for the current constitution amendment exercise.
“Let me emphasise, however, that this is certainly without prejudice to other issues, such as diaspora voting and decentralized policing, which Nigerians, through their memoranda to the committee, feel strongly about.”
Ekweremadu assured Nigerians that the exercise would be driven by the principles of inclusiveness, popular participation and transparency.
He stressed that the committee would point out errors and weaknesses of the Constitution, while charting a path towards making it better.
The Chairman, Conference of Speakers of State Legislatures of Nigeria, Ismaila Kamba, in his remarks, assured of the readiness of state assemblies to play their constitutional roles in ensuring that the new process of amendment was not truncated.
Kamba said the state assemblies would work with the National Assembly and other major stakeholders to ensure the passage of the bill.
He said: “Forces may work to truncate us by employing all sorts of antics, so we should be firm in our resolve to bequeath a constitution we will be proud of to ensure better standard of living for the citizenry.
“In the face of the current realities in the economy, we cannot afford to get the deadlock of the fourth alteration.
“We must ensure that the effort of the stakeholders, the resources and amendment proposal do not go down the drain, hence the retreat is commendable.”
Kamba urged participants to be guided by the fact that so much resources was required to conclude the process, adding that the review should emphasise the interest of the people.
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