AS the National Assembly begins another process of review of the 1999 Constitution, Senators have been divided sharply over renewed calls for a return to the regional system of government.
Speaking separately on Saturday to Journalists as the Senate Adhoc Committee on Constitution Review ended its two-day retreat in Kano, some Senators spoke in favour of regionalism as a panacea to the problems in the country while others vehemently kicked against it.
While the Senate leader, Senator Opeyemi Bamidele, APC, Ekiti Central; Senator Abdul Ningi, PDP, Bauchi Central, and and Senator Muntari Dandutse, APC, Katsina South kicked against return to Regionalism, Senator Abdulfatai Buhari, APC, Oyo North was fully in support.
The Senators spoke at the event, jointly organised by the Senate Committee on Constitution Review in collaboration with the Policy and Legal Advocacy Centre (PLAC).
Speaking on the issue, the Senate leader cautioned that no legislative action should be encouraged on the issue of regionalism so that it does not become an exercise in futility, just as he said that if it must come up, the political stakeholders, the civil society, as well as other stakeholders in the country, would have to debate on it and come to a conclusion.
According to him, going back to regional form of governance is something that will go beyond a bill being sponsored, either as a parliament member bill or as an executive bill adding that it is also not something that you sit down in a public hearing room and organize a public hearing to take a decision on.
He said that the question of whether or not to go back to Regionalism for now, can only remain within what he termed, “the realm of debate”.
Senator Bamidele said, “There are some decisions in the state of which an executive bill cannot come to the parliament unless there are some political consensus. For me, going back to regional form of governance is something that will go beyond a bill being sponsored, either as a parliament member bill or as an executive bill. It’s also not something that you sit down in a public hearing room and organize a public hearing to take a decision on.
“An example is when people tell us, oh, you know, you are in parliament. As a parliament, you cannot discard the entire constitution. Nigeria needs a new constitution.
This constitution cannot work. It’s easy for people to make such arguments, but that is not something we can sit down in parliament and do. So we are changing the constitution because that would require a political consensus, and that would also require the binding of the Nigerian people themselves.
” I mean, why is it so difficult to amend even one section of the constitution, not even talk of discarding the entire constitution? So, to amend a single provision in the constitution today, the National Assembly, all chambers, will have to go through this entire process we are going through, which we go through in every legislative assembly, and many of you have been a part of this process. And after all these things that we have to do in the National Assembly, we still have to go to the public to organize a public hearing. We just decided now that we are going to be organizing a public hearing on geopolitical, zonal levels, you know? And apart from that, what we are also doing with all of these public hearings at the zonal level, we come back here to vote.
“And after voting, we still have to go through, I mean, all the 36 chambers of the Assembly, and we need at least two-thirds of them to endorse. The reason our forefathers and the writers of our constitution, you know, did all of that, is to make it difficult, not difficult, not easy, for a few people to just sit down, or people in one section of the country, you know, to just sit down and change the constitution. So if we are to go through all of that, you know, to change one provision of our constitution, how much more? You know, if we are talking about changing, I mean, the type of governance that we are going to have.
“Some decisions were taken, you know, under the military regime, because there was no democratic process in place. And when you are in a democracy, especially a democracy that remains so nascent, you know, almost 64 years after independence, you see that the need for political consensus cannot be overemphasized. So, for me, the question of whether or not to go back to Regionalism for now, can only remain within the realm of debate, you know, and no legislative action should be encouraged in that regard so that it doesn’t become an exercise in futility.
