Last week, it was broadly reported that the President assented to sixteen new Bills despatched to him by the National Assembly, most of which relate to the modification of the Constitution. This has been within the pipeline for a very long time, being a ritual with each legislative regime in Nigeria. It is taken as job for the boys, to allow sure privileged legislators go across the nation within the identify of gathering the views of the folks for constitutional modification, on the finish of which we had been normally fed with tales of lack of cooperation by the State Houses of Assembly after which it can find yourself as one other case of cash down the drain.

So a lot cash was spent on this undertaking, a lot time went into it and enough assets was amassed such that it could have been an incredible disservice to our expensive nation ought to these efforts be rendered futile. For this and different causes, the National Assembly deserves commendation and the President himself has earned his place in historical past for making these tireless efforts to have achieved some type of federalism, regardless of the way it was executed. However, it could appear that the ruling social gathering was very frugal within the consideration of the true points that require modification within the Constitution, given the time and assets that went into this train. No different physique might have achieved constitutional modification aside from the National Assembly.

Deliberately and with out mincing phrases, the framers of the Constitution in part 4 thereof established the Legislature because the First Arm of presidency, as a result of regulation is required to outline all different elements of human existence. It is thus anticipated that by its extra powers of approval and oversight capabilities, the legislature will work to curb the excesses of the chief arm of presidency, particularly in conditions the place retired army males have hijacked the democratic course of, having of their prime usurped energy by the ignoble technique of coup d’etat, solely to show round in retirement to remodel themselves into democratic dictators. Let us now contemplate the tokens delivered thus far, at the very least from the information experiences, by the use of constitutional modification.
 

The President was stated to have signed into regulation 16 payments in search of to amend varied parts of the 1999 Constitution. According to the knowledge from the Office of the Deputy Speaker of the House of Representatives, Ahmed Wase, who’s the co-chairman of the Committee, the Bills assented to by the President included these devolving powers from the Federal Government to the States as some gadgets had been moved from the Exclusive Legislative List to the Concurrent List within the Constitution. The energy devolution Bills that handed legislative necessities embody these on energy, railway, airports and prisons in addition to biometric and felony data.

While the President signed the Bills in search of to grant state legislature and judiciary autonomy, the vast majority of the state Houses of Assembly opposed independence for native governments. The National Assembly in January transmitted 35 Constitution Alteration Bills handed by the state Houses of Assembly, out of the 44 Bills despatched to the states.

To amend a clause within the Constitution (two-thirds or four-fifths) majority of every of the Senate and the House must approve the modification after which it is going to be transmitted to the state Houses of Assembly, the place two-thirds or 24 out of the 36 of them must concur. Out of the 36 states, 27 Houses of Assembly – Abia, Adamawa, Akwa Ibom, Anambra, Bauchi, Bayelsa, Benue, Borno, Cross River, Delta, Ebonyi, Edo, Ekiti, Enugu, Imo, Kaduna, Kano, Katsina, Kogi, Lagos, Nasarawa, Niger, Ogun, Ondo, Osun Rivers and Yobe – forwarded their resolutions on the payments. Let us take a look at the Bills assented to by the President, intimately.
 
Independence for the State Houses of Assembly and State Judiciary
 
This is christened because the Bill to supply for the monetary independence of state Houses of Assembly and state Judiciary; and for associated issues. This has been a significant undertaking for the current administration, spearheaded by the President himself. To the credit score of the federal authorities, most authorized practitioners favor the federal bench largely due to the seeming independence and the welfare packages. A great instance is the case of a highly-respected couple who each retired from the bench.

The husband was instantly paid his pension and gratuity by the federal authorities while the spouse was subjected to harrowing lamentations by a State that would afford to pay the wage of all judges in Nigeria put collectively. It is identical story for the legislature because the National Assembly enjoys better independence in its operations and even in its funding, than the State Assemblies, that are run extra as appendages of the executives.
Power Generation/Electricity
 
This is titled because the Bill to permit States generate, transmit and distribute electrical energy in areas coated by the nationwide grid; and for associated issues. I used to be just about leaping up in my spirit, to learn of this remaining liberation from the powers of darkness and backwardness. By all means, not solely States but additionally native governments, property builders, establishments and company entities which have the capability to take action ought to have the ability to generate and distribute energy for themselves and in addition for using these of their varied localities.

That is the one method to provoke the commercial revolution that our nation wants desperately. Going spherical my neighbourhood just lately, I found that nearly each house has a generator and this would be the similar for corporations, faculties, non secular centres, establishments and all locations of human existence. The amount of cash spent on the procurement of turbines, on petrol and diesel to energy them after which on upkeep of turbines are sufficient to bail us out of our financial quagmire. The job earlier than the States is to urgently take steps by detailed laws to in flip devolve energy on electrical energy technology to the native governments and the company entities to be able to obtain mass involvement. The financial system of Nigeria is simply ready for the complete implementation of this regulation to kick begin our development and improvement. Businesses have collapsed as a result of rising value of manufacturing, essentially the most fundamental of which is energy provide.

The Cabinet
This is titled because the Bill to require the President and Governors to submit the names of individuals nominated as ministers or commissioners inside 60 days of taking the oath of workplace for affirmation by the Senate or state House of Assembly; and for associated issues. I’ve been on the forefront of this battle to get the chief shifting. This was necessitated by the delay by the President to represent his cupboard properly over six months after he took the oath of workplace in 2015. A go well with was filed in Court during which locus standi turned the focus of judicial intervention. It is certainly gratifying that the legislators have risen to the event.

The Missing Links
The centralization of training by the Constitution has no place in a federation, whereby the federal authorities will decide the mode of admission of scholars right into a college established and funded by a State. There will be no foundation below our current circumstance, for sustaining the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board, which destroys advantage as the premise of in search of and buying information, by cooking up figures for admission into tertiary establishments within the identify of reduce off marks.

This is without doubt one of the irritating elements for our youths, who’re each day exiting Nigeria to different climes for greener pastures. Then after all is the problem of useful resource management. The ninth Assembly shouldn’t have missed the chance to make a press release for the existence of true federalism, unity and fairness. People ought to be allowed to take their future into their fingers and to find out what to do with the assets that God has endowed them with. It is tough to think about that governors of the States nonetheless oppose autonomy for the native governments, that are the brokers of improvement closest to the folks.

Money can’t be the foundation of this retrogression, given the monumental losses that our folks have been subjected to over time. Yes, it has been touted previously that the problem of joint account between the states and native governments has been the bane of improvement and autonomy for the latter. Presently, the native governments solely exist on paper, as no exercise of any significant description is happening in these places.

The duties assigned to the native governments below the Constitution, such because the management of markets, cemeteries, billboards, radio and tv licences, environmental sanitation, waste disposal, street building, and many others have all been taken over by the States. This has in flip crippled the native governments such that almost all of them can not pay the salaries of their staff. I attraction to the governments to please evaluation their place on the problem of native authorities autonomy to be able to place this third tier of presidency in one of the best place to discharge their obligations below the Constitution. In all, what we now have within the identify of constitutional modification falls wanting our expectations and certainly the guarantees made by the ruling social gathering in its personal manifesto. There continues to be time to do the needful, earlier than handing over.

Adegboruwa is a Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN)