By Christiana Ekpa
The Deputy Speaker of the House of Representatives, Rep. Idris Ahmed Wase yesterday restated that, the House will pay special attention to Local Government Reform, Electoral Reform and Judicial reform in the process of amending the 1999 constitution.
Wase disclosed this while speaking at a retreat for members of the House Adhoc Committee on Constitution Review, on Monday in Abuja.
According to him, it’s evident that the country was passing through serious challenges as a result of the local government system not working as it should and therefore need special attention from the lawmakers.
He stressed the need for lawmakers use the opportunity to write their names in gold by ensuring that they do everything possible to give Nigerians a people oriented constitution, adding that electoral review was particularly important to give Nigerians a direction in its democratic growth.
Wase who is also the Chairman of the Constitution review Committee of the House said the issue of state creation as well as women participation will also be given special attention by the House Committee.
He said “this is about our nation building. We have the opportunity to write names in gold. Whatever we are going to do here. We should be guided by the fact that Nigeria need very critical reforms at this very particular moment and time.
“By our own design at the secretariat, we thought we should segment the issues in the country so that we will have them in batches. We are not going to have one batch constitutional review like it is done in the past. As the issues come, we shall be treating them and we have classified the issues.
“As at today, we require electoral reforms. That should be done and this is the right moment to have this one done. Anything short of this particular period, you know how we behave, many misgivings will come in. So I expect us to spend our time so that we give in our best and be able to send out the best of what Nigeria will require to improve our electoral system and participation.
“We also have the issue of judicial reform which is very key. We are all aware of the various shortcomings and shortfalls within that sector and it is important that we go in that.
“Local government reform is another very thorny and burning issue and we need to put our heads together to ensure we liberate that particular system for the benefit of Nigerians and I believe it is important.
“If that tier of government is working very fine, a lot of things happening today, be it insecurity, social infrastructure will be addressed. If the structure of local government is functional and made to work in the manner that it used to be before, I think, there would be a serious improvement in that aspect.
“This issue of women participation, I think it is important that we also add this one. We shouldn’t shy away from it. I believe we should be gender sensitive. Other countries have done it and we could also do it.
“The other side of the divide we are looking at is in the other climes, what they did was to create special constituencies for the women. I think that also could be achieved in Nigeria. It could be done. We all need to work together.
“There are also issues in the constitution that are supposed to be justiciable. For instance, it is the right of every Nigerian to have education. But are we really giving the education to our people with the menace we are having in the streets? I think it is a matter to look at. Those matters of human rights in the constitution could be improved so that we can give it to our people the way they should be done.
“The issue of state Creation, the issue of roles to our traditional rulers, all these are very important issues we should give attention to. By the time we are able to achieve this one, we will able to write our name in gold”.
Lead consultant to the Committee and a Professor of Law with the University of Jos, Prof. Dakas C.J. Dakas said in reviewing the constitution, the House must take cognizance of the participation of Nigerians in the process if they are to owe the final document.
He said in carrying out the exercise, the committee must find a way to harvest the views of Nigerians, while paying special attention to certain constitutional provisions in other not to render the outcome of the exercise a nullity.
Prof. Dakas said further that there was the need for the House Committee to work in collaboration with its Senate counterpart and probably hold a joint public hearing rather than seeing themselves as rivals.
The Professor of Law said it was the opinion of all the consultants that the House Committee should also segment issues and deal with them as they come, taking an example from the 8th Assembly, adding that by so doing, each issue in the review will be dealt with on its own merit.
