Eminent lawyers rejected yesterday President
Goodluck Jonathan’s plan to send the National
Conference’s report to the National Assembly
for ratification.
To constitutional lawyer Prof Itsey Sagay (SAN),
any plan to send the report to the lawmakers
will amount to insincerity or ignorance.
In a telephone interview with The Nation, he
said: “We’re talking of a conference, which will
result in a new Constitution, which will then be
approved by plebiscite, by referendum, so that
it becomes a Constitution made by Nigerian
people.
“What we’re saying is that this cannot be a
proposal for the amendment of the
Constitution. So, in my view, either the
President doesn’t understand what he is doing
by convoking a conference, or he’s deliberately
putting poison into the process to kill it from
the beginning.
“To say you’re taking it to the National
Assembly, which doesn’t have the capacity or
the jurisdiction or the authority to make a new
Constitution, is to say you want to kill it. The
House has a vested interested in the status
quo.”
Sagay was not comfortable with the lawmakers
handling the report because, according to him,
“they’re the people who are going to try and
amend and mutilate and destroy anything that
people would have taken all the trouble to
make”.
“This National Assembly has been there since
1999. What has it achieved? Just promotion of
self-interest in all its processes of
constitutional amendment – amendments that
are meaningless and totally useless.
“What we’re talking about now is wholesale
new Constitution, which only the people
themselves can make. Any reference to the
National Assembly is an attempt to kill the
conference before it takes off. So, it’s lack of
sincerity or ignorance. It’s one or the other.”
Activist-lawyer Bamidele Aturu agreed with
Sagay, saying the National Assembly is not
required to make any input in the outcome of
the conference.
He said: “Sending the outcome of the
conference to the National Assembly will
amount to unnecessary duplication of efforts.
In the first place, the National Assembly is
trying to amend the Constitution – there is a
process to amend the Constitution,” he said,
adding: “When you do the conference also, it
will lead to the amendment of the Constitution.
So, why do you then duplicate functions? And
that tells us that in the first place, maybe there
was even no need to set up this conference, to
begin with, because you’re now saying that the
people will not vote on the outcome of the
conference in a referendum, and that is
contrary to what we had all expected.
“Many people have said, and this is the point
we make, that for you to do a national
conference as opposed to just constitutional
amendment, the people of Nigeria must ratify
or endorse the resolution of the conference. If
that does not happen, then the whole thing is
a waste of time. This falls far short of what
Nigerians expect or deserve. Many people will
now be right to say that it’s just a political
gimmick.”
But, to a professor of law and former Abia
State Attorney-General, Awah Kalu (SAN), there
is no way any form of amendment of the
Constitution can take place without recourse to
the National Assembly.
He said: “There is no way that the outcome of
the conference will not be sent to the National
Assembly, because if you look at the definition
in Section 9 of the Constitution, which talks
about alteration of the Constitution, if legally
interpreted, it means that alteration will
include even a completely new Constitution.
“In law, if you want to amend, it includes the
substitution for what is existing. So, if you
look at that Section 9, you will see that it is
the National Assembly that has the power to
alter the Constitution, which means that if the
influence is external, as in the Conference now
– a body that produces, the best they can do is
to produce a draft Constitution, and that will
go to the National Assembly.
“Once the National Assembly adopts it, then it
will come back to the President for his assent.
I don’t see any way around the final product
going to the National Assembly.”
A constitutional lawyer, Mr Sebastine Hon
(SAN), said President Jonathan was right. “The
President is not wrong to have resolved to
push the result of the conference to the
National Assembly,” he said, adding: “The law-
making powers of the federation are vested in
the National Assembly. When it comes to
amendment of most sections of the
Constitution, they share those powers with
state Houses of Assembly.
“Except we’re saying there is no National
Assembly or legislature in place, those
advocating that the conference should fashion
out a Constitution on its own, I think, with due
respect, are in grave error. We have a
legislature in place, and if anything comes out
of the conference, it needs to go to them for
ratification.
“We elected them. They are our
representatives. And we have a Constitution in
place, which has been operated for the past 13
years. So, there’s no way we can now begin to
say that somebody or a body unknown to the
Constitution is fashioning out a new
Constitution without the input of the National
Assembly. I think it’s dexterous on the part of
the President to have resolved to do that,” Hon
said.
To Kalu, subjecting the report of the national
conference to a referendum does not absolve
it from legislative subjection.
He said: “The plebiscite is a step before the
final thing. If you want rotational presidency,
for instance, you subject it to a plebiscite or a
referendum as the case may be. If you want
multiple vice-presidency as some people have
in the past proposed, you also submit it to
referendum.
“Anything that is not presently in the
Constitution, which is a new and radical idea,
can be sent to the people for referendum. If
the people say ‘yes’, then that will come to the
National Assembly for ratification, but it will
then have no power to override any decision
taken in a referendum, because power belongs
to the people. It’s there in Section 14 (2) of
the Constitution.”
Asked if such an amendment could be
concluded early considering the process of
constitution amendment, Awah said: “The
government is a continuous process, but if
we’re diligent about the steps we’re about to
take, it shouldn’t take too long.
“Nigerians have been talking for 53 years now,
and there are so many reports in the past that
are gathering dust somewhere. There is
virtually no idea that has not been canvassed.
Maybe, all we need is to articulate what has
been said in the past.”
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