FG sheds weight as Buhari assents to power devolution bills

The President, Major General Muhammadu Buhari (retd.), has signed into law 16 bills seeking to amend various parts of the 1999 Constitution. The Joint Senate and House of Representatives’ Special Ad Hoc Committee on the Review of the 1999 Constitution made this known on Friday.

According to the information from the Office of the Deputy Speaker of the House of Representatives, Ahmed Wase, who is the co-chairman of the committee, the bills assented to by the President included those devolving powers from the Federal Government to the states as some items were moved from the Exclusive Legislative List to the Concurrent List in the Constitution.

Many lawyers and analysts have argued for years that the exclusive legislative list, comprising matters which only the Federal Government could legislate on, was too heavy and that it needed to devolve power to the states.

The power devolution bills that passed legislative requirements include those on power, railway,…