CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT: SEN. ADEOLA GOES FOR BROKE By Kayode Odunaro

The legislative arm of government is by definition primarily put in place to make laws for the governance of a nation. For us in Nigeria, this function is clearly spelt out in section 4 of the 1999 Constitution which states inter alia  the National Assembly shall “make laws for the peace, order and good government of the Federation or any part thereof”.  Its other functions in terms of the principle of separation of power to act as checks and balances in the tripod of democratic arrangement of the executive, the legislature and the judiciary are all subsumed under the primary role of law making. The oversight and representative functions of the legislator are both secondary to law making function.

In any nation, the overriding law of the land is its Constitution. It is supreme to any other law and in case of conflict or contradiction, the Constitution overrides any law in conflict with it. It is thus an all important document that set the ground norms for the way a society is organized, regulated and governed. However in spite of its all important nature, the document is usually not a perfect document for all events and for all times. It may be originally defective or circumstances and events may have rendered some of its provisions superfluous or contrary to orderly and just development of society. There is thus the need for corrections in forms of periodic amendments that follows a rigorous process to prevent arbitrariness. For law makers at the highest level, the job of constitutional amendments start with them playing an important role. In our nascent democracy, the two chambers of National Assembly, the Senate and House of Representatives are saddled with critical roles of kick starting the process for a constitutional amendments with the two chambers having Constitution Amendment Committees headed by no less a person than the deputy senate president and deputy speaker respectively.

As it is well known our 1999 Constitution now in operation is a military document that many agree is full of imperfections or provisions that has since been overtaken by events. Attempts in the past to amend the constitution has met with varying degrees of success with one such spectacular attempt ending in a colossal failure under the weight of a “Third Term” provision that led all other amended provisions being thrown away in a manner of the baby and the bath water. The Seventh National Assembly equally made far reaching amendments that regrettably were not signed by the President Goodluck Jonathan until the expiration of that session.

Now the 8^th National Assembly with Senator Bukola Saraki as chairman has again taken the bull by the horn to give the nation constitutional amendments in furtherance of good governance and constitutional development of the nation. The two Constitutional Amendment Committees has since started work with senators and members introducing constitutional amendment bills and the House of Representatives organizing a retreat in Abeokuta pursuant of fine-tuning the amendments it received.

One Senator however took this aspect of his work seriously and caused not a small stir with the introduction of 14 constitutional amendment bills. Senator Solomon Adeola (APC, Lagos West), a Fellow of ICAN representing the largest senatorial district in Nigeria in terms of population, introduced 15 amendment bills aimed at addressing various issues that ails our constitution or provisions that need adjustment to take in realities of the present and future times. From records the closest number of such legislative bills to his fecundity is a senator with about six such bills. Twelve of the bills were successfully introduced, passed the first reading and were committed to the Constitutional Review Committee for further legislative work in accordance with Senate Standing Rules. No less than three major national newspapers had published some of the proposed amendments as lead or major story with such generating heated debate for the issues they propose to address.  

Rationalizing his focus, Senator Adeola was quoted as saying that as a legislator of over 13 years standing from state assembly to the House of Representatives and now in the Senate, it is only natural that he is better placed to know some of the shortcomings of our constitution in operation adding that it is part of his mandate as promised to his constituents to perform on all aspects of his duties as their representatives.

Most of the amendment bills of Senator Adeola are controversial but he is of the view that it is better to address these issues instead of shying away because of controversies they may generate. One such is Senate Bill No. SB 342, a “ Bill for an Act to Alter The Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria to Guarantee Freedom of Speech and Legislative Actions of Members of the National Assembly”. This bill which was wrongly interpreted to mean immunity for the leadership of the National Assembly and members from criminal prosecution is actually aimed at strengthening our democratic institution by guaranteeing freedom of speech and protection of members of parliament over words spoken or actions taken in course of noemal legislative business.

Another amendment bill of Senator Adeola, Bill No.SB 345 seeks to prevent torture or inhuman or degrading treatment like parading of suspects by police, stripping of arrested person and in detention of their cloths or using sticks, whips, baton, guns or any other form of torture to extract evidence from suspects while Bill No. SB 346 seeks to give more power of direction over the Police by State Governors instead of the centralize provisions contained in Sections 214(4) and 215(5) in combating crimes.  

Still on controversial bills, Sen. Adeola Bill No.SB 347 did cause a stir. The bill seeks to alter Part 1 of the Fifth Schedule to the Constitution of the Code of Conduct for Public Officers which forbids public officers from maintaining and operating foreign accounts. Not surprisingly this bill generated a furore with some claiming it will fuel corruption but in essence the prohibition of operating such a bank account does not accord with the current realities where the world has become a global village where illicit funds could easily be tracked. On the converse side is the usefulness of such accounts by genuine holders to engage in legitimate personal and business transactions.

And in relations to his area of specialty public finance, Senator Adeola via Bill No SB.348 seeks an amendment of Section 162 of the Constitution to provide for the Office of Accountant General for the Federation (as distinct from that of the Federal Government). The purpose of the office is to take cognizance of our three tier federation and joint finances issues as different from Federal Government finance. Another amendment bill SB.349 seeks to amend the constitution to provide for the consent of the Senate/State House of Assembly before the removal of a minister or commissioner in government while SB.350 seeks alteration for State Government to pay Local Councils a proportion of the state IGR as prescribed by laws enacted by State Houses of Assembly. Bill SB. 351 seeks amendment of Section 291 to provide uniform pension rights for judicial officers in Nigeria.

Indeed Senator Adeola commitment to the nation’s constitutional development in addition to some of his other legislative bills that are undergoing legislative process can never be doubted while the process for positive constitutional changes goes into fruition hopefully with this attempt of the 8^th National Assembly. The ball is now in the hands of the Constitutional Amendment Committees, the State Houses of Assembly and the president to give us a working constitution that addressed challenges of the military proclaimed 1999 Constitution.

Chief Kayode Odunaro

Media Adviser to Senator Adeola.