Eminent constitutional lawyer, Prof. Ben Nwabueze, has called for the repeal of Decree 24 of 1999 to give legal teeth to the resolutions of the National Conference.
Nwabueze made the call in Umuahia, Abia State on Tuesday in an interview with newsmen after he and some leaders of thought visited Governor Theodore Orji of Abia State.
He explained that Section 9 of the constitution prescribed the procedure for its alteration without going through the national and state assemblies.
He described the 1999 Constitution as “a schedule to Decree 24 of 1999,” adding: “All you have to do is to repeal that decree and the schedule containing the constitution will disappear.”
He said that Section 4 conferred on the National Assembly the powers to repeal the decree and subsequently set the 1999 Constitution aside.
According to Nwabueze, the procedure was adopted in 1963 to repeal the Order-in-Council.
“We repealed the Order-in-Council in 1963 and the schedule that contained the Independent Constitution disappeared,” he said.
He, however, warned that the procedure “should be done in sequence, simultaneously, so that the National Assembly does not disappear”.
Nwabueze urged President Goodluck Jonathan to submit an executive bill on “National Conference and Referendum Bill” to the National Assembly.
The elder statesman explained that he and some patriots prepared and submitted to Jonathan documents that recommended means to give legal teeth to the National Conference.
He said that he had confidence in the ability of the conference to transform Nigeria into a new, better and united country.
He, however, noted that for the conference to achieve the objective, “it must have the competence to adopt the constitution that would be binding on all Nigerians.”
“That is the kind of conference that we had envisaged,” he said, but regretted that “it is not the kind of conference that is going on now”.
Nwabueze, however, expressed optimism that all is not lost, adding that he was working on measures that would salvage the conference to meet the expectations of many Nigerians.
“The President should submit to the National Assembly, even at this stage, an executive bill in terms of the National Conference and Referendum Bill, that we the patriots prepared and submitted to him many months ago,” he said.
He urged Jonathan “to muster the courage to present the bill, in spite of the opposition in the National Assembly”.
He said that the passage of the bill would transform the resolutions of the conference into the constitution of Nigeria.
Nwabueze, who led some leaders of thought from the South East on the visit, said that they visited Orji to congratulate him on his emergence as Chairman of the South East Governors’ Forum.
He said that the group also presented a 170-page document on its position on the ongoing national conference to the governor.
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