Speaker of the House of Representatives, Femi Gbajabiamila, has urged state Houses of Assembly to consider and pass bills transmitted to them by the National Assembly in the ongoing review of the 1999 Constitution.
Gatekeepers News reports that the National Assembly had on March 1, 2022, voted on the 68 amendments recommended by the Joint Senate and House of Representatives’ Special Ad Hoc Committee on the Review of the 1999 Constitution.
The bills are seeking to amend various parts of the 1999 Constitution.
On March 29, 2022, the National Assembly transmitted 44 Constitution alteration bills passed by it to the 36 state Houses of Assembly for concurrence.
At the opening of plenary on Tuesday after the National Assembly returned from its two-month annual break, Gbajabiamila appealed to State assemblies to pass the amendment bills.
The Speaker noted that the lawmakers owe Nigerians a Constitution that they (citizens) can identify with and call their own.
He said, “The Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria begins with the words ‘we the people of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, having firmly and solemnly resolved’. In this 9th Assembly, we pledged to effect changes to the constitution that will give full effect to our people’s aspirations and help achieve our nation’s highest ideals. We promised a Constitution that reflects the future we desire and the potential we aspire to rather than the past from which we emerged. To that end, we considered and passed substantive amendments, which we forwarded to the state legislatures as required by the Constitution.
“Much of what we hope to become as a nation will remain elusive until we have a genuinely democratic constitution. We need a Constitution that addresses once and for all the unsettled questions that continue to divide us, distract from nation-building and hinder our hopes for a more perfect union.
“Therefore, I appeal to our colleagues in the state parliaments and to all the relevant authorities in the states to expedite action on these constitutional amendment bills under the leadership of the Deputy Speaker (Ahmed Wase). We owe it to the Nigerian people to deliver a constitution that speaks to our future and, most importantly, comes from and belongs to ‘we the people.’”
