SAN FRANCISCO, October 21, (THEWILL) – The National Assembly on Tuesday brightened the prospect of full independence for the beleaguered Local Governments in Nigeria.
Both chambers; Senate and House of Representatives via reports of its conference committee on the amendment of the 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, granted autonomy to the Local Governments by strengthening the administration of local governments In Nigeria by providing for their funding, tenure, elections and to clearly delineate their powers and responsibilities.
Also the National Assembly approved for independent Candidacy in Elections even as it retained the immunity clause for governors in the revised constitution.
These were the highpoints of the conference committee reports that was approved in the Senate on Tuesday.
THEWILL recalls that the Senate had during voting on the revised constitution rejected local government autonomy while it scaled through in the House of Representatives.
However, it overwhelmingly voted for the autonomy as agreed in the harmonised report.
The Senate had earlier voted on 63 clauses while the House of Representatives voted on 71 clauses, the removal of immunity clause for governors and the controversial clause 9, which gives the president powers to initiate a new constitution didn’t make it to the final harmonised version
Section 134 and 179 extends the time for conducting presidential or governorship re-run elections to 21 days instead of the seven days for both presidential and gubernatorial elections
It also empowers the Independent National Electoral Commission ( INEC) to deregister political parties for non- fulfillment of certain conditions such as breach of registration requirements and failure to secure/ win either a presidential, governorship, local government chairmanship or a seat in the National or state Assembly
The contentious state of the Nation address which makes it mandatory for the President to attend a joint meeting of the National Assembly once a year was also approved.
Immunity was conferred on legislators in respect of words spoken or written in the exercise of their legislative duties while section 59 authorised the president of the Senate to convene a joint meeting of the National Assembly to reconsider a money bill where the President withholds his assent
On failure of a President or governor to assent to a bill within 30 days, Section 58 and 100 resolved the impasse where the President or governor of a state neglects to signify his assent or withholds such assent. This will strengthen legislatures’ authority and enable timely passage of laws for good governance
It also approved the establishment of the office of the Attorney General of the Federation and attorney general of a state respectively as distinct from Minister of Justice and Commissioner of Justice
The proposed new constitution also enhanced the sovereignty of the citizens through their elected Representatives by removing the need for presidential assent in constitution alteration exercise.
The report also in one of its clauses reduced the period within which the president or the governor of a state may authorise the withdrawal of money from the Consolidated Revenue Funds in the absence of an appropriation act from six to three months and also created office of the Accountant General for the Federal Government.
The recent trend of government officials ignoring summons from the National Assembly was also taken care of by empowering the National Assembly and the state Houses of Assembly respectively to prescribe sanctions, civil or criminal or both for failure, refusal or neglect to obey summons issued by a legislative house or a committee of any of the Houses.
It also engendered accountability and efficient service delivery by providing for the funding of the state Houses of Assembly, auditor general of the state and the Attorney General of a state directly from the state consolidated Revenue Fund and the consequential provisions of the making of the local government a full third tier government. It created the office of the auditor general of the local government as well as the state Local Government Service Commission and also deleted the State Independent Electoral Commission .
Section 228 confers powers on the National Assembly to make laws for the procedures, guidelines and qualifications for access to the ballot by political parties and independent candidates. It also provides that a court or tribunal shall not stay any proceedings on account of any interlocutory appeal .
It also approves the conferment of exclusive jurisdiction on the federal high court for trial of electoral offences and provides for time for determination of pre-election matters, establishment of local governments election tribunal and time for determination of election Petitions
In particular, it provides that where a force majeure occurs, the period of the force majeure shall not be counted in the computation of the 180 days for the purpose of determining election petitions .
On legislative powers the report said: the exclusive powers under part 1 to the schedule of the constitution is congested, cumbersome and unwieldy. “There is therefore the need to decongest the exclusive list by maintaining only items of uttermost importance to the Federation as a whole and transferring some items to the concurrent list.”
“The committee therefore substituted post and telegraphs with post and telecommunications, included National Security Agencies and removed pensions, railways, stamp duties and wages from the exclusive legislative list. The following items were transferred and included in the concurrent list: Arbitration, environment, health, housing, railways, road safety stamp duties, wages, land and agriculture, youths.”
Senate President David Mark urged the committee to send the approved report early to the state assemblies as the earlier the better as in most cases it takes time before the state assemblies send it back to the National Assembly as two thirds of the state Houses of Assembly will have to approve it before it can become law.
EMMA UCHE, ABUJA.
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