House of Representatives will have a rubicon to cross

 

In the coming weeks, the House of Representatives will have a rubicon to cross. It will face the public on steps so far taken on the ongoing review of the 1999 Constitution.
The Ad hoc Committee in charge of the amendment led by the Deputy Speaker of the House, Emeka Ihedioha, will be expected to unveil the report of the recent public sessions, held in the 360 federal constituencies to elicit public views on key items slated for amendment.
The House is currently on recess but will resume on April 16. Of course, there is a deluge of issues on the card, awaiting the lawmakers. But clearly, the presentation of the public sessions report ranks above other issues.
Earlier attempt last year to present the report got botched and raised dust.
The dust was not just that it was canceled but the manner in which it was called off. Prior to the day, a widespread publicity was mounted and sustained by the Committee on the Review of the 1999 Constitution and the consulting firm it engaged to help in the collation of results of the public sessions.
The public sessions took place in November 2012 and, at least, the exercise reportedly gulped over N500 million (five hundred million naira).
The lawmakers gave themselves a pat on the back for staging the sessions in their various domains. They also got accolades from some notable Nigerians and bodies, which posited that it was the first time the National Assembly would seek the views of the grassroots on key issues slated for amendment.
Some of the items that dominated the sessions included the autonomy of local government, first line charge for State Houses of Assembly, state creation and political reforms. Each lawmaker recorded the proceedings in his or her stakeholders’s conference.
Upon return from the outing, the Speaker, Aminu Tambuwal, promised that the views of those that participated in the sessions would be captured and made to form part of the constitution review. He also pledged that the views would be formally presented to the public.
In view of the promise, nobody was taken aback when the Ihedioha committee announced that it was ready to present the report some months ago. But the event was to mark off an interesting politics over the public session.
To the consternation of the public that gathered for the presentation, the speaker announced its cancelation. He didnt give detailed reason for the decision.
Allegations, insinuations and speculations started flying around. For those who have been around in the National Assembly, the cancelation was nothing but a reminder of the politics, rancour and mischief that prevailed among senators in the days, preceding the death of the constitution review exercise presided over by the then deputy senate president, Ibrahim Mantu. All the intrigues led to the death of the ‘third term agenda’ in May 2006 in the Senate.
Interestingly, even some members of the constitution review committee, who are not happy with the deputy speaker, helped to fuel some damming allegations and claims. Some of the allegations were that the governors influenced the committee to expunge issues like the financial autonomy for councils, and first line charge for Houses of Assembly; that the speaker did not see the report until few hours to the slated time of presentation and that the committee was factionalised.
A lawmaker from the North alleged: “Nine out of the 42 issues on the template, which our people voted against were tampered with and we discovered that it was done to many constituencies with a view to giving a result that will favour the creation of an additional state in the South East.”
“They deliberately doctored the report in the process of collation to say that 70 per cent of the 360 constituencies had on November 10 supported the creation of another state for the South East, which was not the true position. To our knowledge, no state outside the South East voted in support of state creation.”
But media aide to the Speaker, Imam Imam denied that the cancellation of the report was based on any wrong doing by the Ihedioha committee. He explained that the decision was based on few errors detected in the report.
He said: “There is no truth in the claims out there that the cancellation was on account of any under table deals. It is wicked to say so. There is nothing like that. I don’t know why some people could be that wicked as to sit down and concoct what never happened.”
But Imam’s explanation did not end the rumour. It didnt also stop forces against Ihedioha from throwing barbs at him. Some insist that his handling of the public session report was not satisfying. To show the level of battle that the Deputy Speaker had to fight within his ad hoc committee before the botched presentation event, it was reliably gathered that some members of the committee protested informally to the Speaker and convinced him to intervene and stop what they termed “the biggest embarrassment of the session.”
When some prominent lawmakers gathered in Tambuwal’s official residence in Abuja to discuss the issue, it was said that a few lawmakers rose and told Ihedioha that his leadership of the constitution review exercise left much to be desired.
That meeting was to pave the way for a parley by principal officers. It was at this gathering that the Speaker resolved to cancel the presentation of the report.
In a speech while canceling that presentation of the collated report, Tambuwal admitted that the collation of the document was marred with “hitches here and there.”
He explained, “I will begin by apologising to you collectively and severally for the delay in the commencement of the process. I would like to say that as leaders, we will continue to engage ourselves and in the process of doing that, ensure that what ought to be done or needs to be done is done very well, especially here in the House of Representatives where this process has been acclaimed to be transparent thus far.
“We will not as such want a situation whereby at this stage there should be no issue that has to do with the total collated results of what need to be presented to the public today. As a leadership, we have reviewed the process so far, and realised that we cannot go ahead with this programme today. Just like any other thing associated with humans, there are hitches here and there. This is normal.”
Another rumour was to trail the Speaker’s move. Some people quickly explained his action on what they called pressure from the Northern Governors Forum. They cited the unhidden stand of Kano State Governor, Dr Rabiu Kwankwaso that the constitution review was tailored to favour of the South East.
He said “What we have in the National Assembly is that today, only God can moderate what is happening there, as nobody else can do it. I say so, because if you look at the budget of the Federal Government, which is one of the main functions of the National Assembly, what they do is when the president brings the budget, it includes what they call the constituency projects like roads, hospitals, and water projects for the legislators to execute.
What this means is that they have constituted themselves into another executive arm of government, competing with the President, competing with the governors and even competing with the council chairmen. A legislator has no business, coming out of his constituency to construct roads and that is telling on the general performance of the Federal Government.”
The House did not close its eyes and ears to Kwankwaso’s claims. It swiftly flayed the governor’s views and accused him of playing to the gallery.
House spokesman, Zakari Mohammed, in a statement, declared: “The issue of local government autonomy as far as Nigerians are concerned is long overdue, arising from our public sessions. As representatives of our people, our constituents do not agree with the current status where governors, including Kwankwaso, at the expense of the people, are pilfering local government funds and chairmen who are seen as mere boys for the job.
We would certainly not accept a situation where governors turn themselves into demigods in the name of joint account.”
Ihedioha’s loyalists in the House were not happy that some people chose to spread falsehood and impugn the character of the Deputy Speaker. They insisted that enough opportunities were given to all members to access and make input into the final copy of the report.
A lawmaker close to the deputy speaker, who preferred anonymity, said: “The critical stage of collation of the results notably involved representatives of these stakeholder groups and organisations in the open secretariat of the committee and the process was monitored by the press corps.” He insisted that there were “repeated announcements for members to scrutinise collated results from their constituencies so that observed errors could be corrected. Failure to do so cannot be a fault of the committee.”
He stressed “such openness, transparency and accountability of the process makes it immune from manipulation from any quarters. Importantly, allegations of ‘doctoring’ could not be substantiated when those who alleged were confronted to substantiate.
“The committee leadership did not at any time meet with any interest or pressure group with the motive of influencing the outcome of the report, and the committee held regular meetings and agreed on decisions collectively. Failure of any member to attend meetings does not approximate to not being carried along.”
Another member said: “The Peoples Public Sessions initiative remains the most inclusive approach to constitution making in the history of Nigeria so far, and credit must be given to the House ad-hoc committee led by deputy speaker, Emeka Ihedioha for the initiative and the smooth-sailing of the process thus far.
“Its planning, execution and monitoring is fashioned to underscore the centrality and credibility of its outcome. Organised labour, the Nigerian Labour Congress (NLC) and the Trade Union Congress (TUC), professional interest groups like the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA), Nigerian Union of Teachers (NUT), Academic Staff Union of Universities, (ASUU), Nigerian Union of Journalists (NUJ), etc, women and youth groups like the Nigerian Council of Women Societies (NCWS), National Association of Nigerian Students (NANS), and civil society organisations, among other stakeholders were involved at every stage of the process.”
At the end of a retreat in Port Harcourt, the Rivers State capital last year, the ad-hoc committee agreed on issues to be addressed in the constitution review exercise. The communiqué, issued at the end of the 4-day retreat had noted among other issues that: “the socio-political objectives under the 1999 Constitution require accountability of political leadership to the citizens thereby necessitating the guarantee of economic and social rights under Chapter II to the citizens either by amendment of Chapter II or by a Bill of Rights.
“That there is the need to further examine the constitutional provisions on immunity as contained in Section 308 of the constitution.
“The need to guarantee national security and effective policing in Nigeria will necessitate the amendment of constitutional provisions on national security and policing to redefine the concept of national security to include protection of fundamental rights, as well as substantial reform of the Nigeria Police.
“The principle of federalism adopted by the 1999 Constitution calls for a restructuring of the federal structure to provide for full devolution of powers between the different tiers of government; and “the system of local government administration instituted by the 1999 Constitution should be reformed to guarantee the autonomy, efficiency and viability of the local government system.”
Conspiracy theorists have suggested that the media war between the National Assembly and governors on the constitution amendment exercise is an indication that the ‘governors have a hand in the on-going crisis in the House regarding the review of the constitution. The latest altercation in that direction was between the House and the Kano State Governor Dr. Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso.
Now, as the House prepares to resume, there is a buzz in some circles about the fate of the report. Questions are also being asked as to whether the chamber has organised itself on the report. The crack in the Ihedioha’s adhoc committee, take or leave it, is not caused by him. It is caused by the diverse interests which the lawmakers are representing. Some are there to do the bidding of their governors and any decision that is not in agreement with the position of those governors would be fought and opposed by these lawmakers.
However, the House’s image would be deeply hurt if another attempt at presenting the report of the public session is botched and embedded in intrigues.