Constitution Review: Lawan Lobbies El-Rufai To Prevail On Governors

President of the Senate, Ahmad Lawan on Monday appealed to Governor Nasir El-Rufai of Kaduna State to prevail on his colleague governors to encourage their respective state Houses of Assembly to transmit back to the National Assembly their responses on the Bills sent to them on the Constitution amendment.

The National Assembly in March passed 44 Bills to amend some key provisions of the 1999 constitution and transmitted the same to the 36 states’ Houses of Assembly for their endorsement or otherwise as part of the process of the constitutional amendment.

The process requires the endorsement of not less than two-thirds of the 36 state Houses of Assembly for any of the Bills to sail through but less than half of the 36 states have so far transmitted their responses back to the National Assembly.

Lawan, who spoke against this backdrop while declaring open the Distinguished Parliamentarians Lecture 2022 which was organised by the National Institute of Legislative and Democratic Studies (NILDS), said that the National Assembly sent the outcome of the constitution review to the States but yet to receive all from the states.

Lawan told El-Rufai, who chaired the occasion that there is a need to wind up the process by getting responses from the State Houses of Assembly.

Lawan further said; “Even if it is one month left, we have the capacity to work together to ensure that we pass some of the legislations that are required in a very expeditious manner. Lobby your Governor colleagues because I can see that you do that very well”.

The Senate President said the lecture was one of the laudable initiatives of NILDS geared towards bridging the gap between the electorates and their elected representatives.

He said; “It is also an avenue for us the parliament to tell our stories to the wider audience, so as to change the misperception and misinformation in the public domain.

“No doubt, the legislature which is the fulcrum of Democracy worldwide has been misunderstood, some for mischievous purposes and at times as owing to its underdeveloped stature historically.

“It is in lieu of this that the First Parliamentarians lecture which I delivered last year gave a lucid narration of such misplaced perception of the 9th Assembly under my leadership.

“Today’s 2nd series of the Distinguished Parliamentarians Lecture attempt a critical assessment of the House of Representatives within the context of its agenda, this is because the importance of the House of Representatives in the annals of Nigeria’s political and legal evolution cannot be overemphasized.

“We all know that the House of Representatives is normally the radical arm of the National Assembly. It is the same in the US and it is the same everywhere.

“That is because the House has its own orientation, its own sensibilities, and its own sentiments.

“Tellingly, the 9th National Assembly (including the 9th House of Representatives) has passed some of the most ground-breaking and significant legislations in the history of parliamentarianism in Sub-Saharan Africa.

“To mention but a few, the Companies and Allied Matters Act, which was passed in 2020, has revolutionized Nigeria’s corporate world and fostered the ‘ease of doing business’ agenda of the federal government of Nigeria.

“The Petroleum Industry Act, which was passed in 2021, is a watershed enactment that clearly stipulates new principles, new regulatory regimes, and new governance frameworks for the realization of the full promise of Nigeria’s hydrocarbon potential,” he said.