Nigeria: Constitution Review Impasse – Reps Head for Court

The battle for supremacy between the Senate and the House of Representatives over the leadership of the constitution review committee is about to shift from the precincts of the National Assembly to the Supreme Court, as some lawmakers head for the apex court to seek interpretation of certain sections of the constitution regarding the status of the two chambers.A group of members of the House under the aegis of the Faculty Board of the Initiatives announced yesterday in Abuja that it was going to court to seek interpretation of sections 4(1), 53(2) and 54(2) of the constitution, which provide for the establishment of the two chambers of the National Assembly.

The Senate and the House are claiming certain rights over how to steer the affairs of the National Assembly Joint Constitution Review Committee (JCCR), a disagreement that led the House members into pulling out of the committee. They also threatened to begin a parallel review of the constitution.

While senators interpret the constitutional provisions to mean that the Senate is a senior partner in the legislature, the House members give the sections different interpretations to show that the two chambers are equal partners.

Dean of the group, Rep Eseme Eyibo (PDP, Akwa Ibom), in a text message to one of our reporters yesterday in Abuja, said the group is seeking for “simple interpretation to keep the records straight and deepen our democracy.”

But Eyibo clarified that the group is acting independently of the leadership of the House. “We’re not acting on behalf of the House of Representatives nor the leadership of the House, this is just part of our resolve to deepen our democracy,” he told Daily Trust by telephone yesterday.

Section 4 (1) of the constitution says: “The legislative powers of the Federal Republic of Nigeria shall be vested in a National Assembly for the Federation which shall consist of a Senate and a House of Representatives.”

Section 53 (2) gives conditions for a joint sitting of the two chambers thus: “At any joint sitting of the Senate and House of Representatives (a) the President of the Senate shall preside, and in his absence the speaker of the House of Representatives shall preside and (b) in the absence of the persons mentioned in paragraph (a) of this section the Deputy Senate President shall preside and in his absence the Deputy Speaker of the House of Representatives shall preside.”

But section 54 (2) says: “The joint sitting of both the Senate and House of Representatives shall be one-third of all the members of both houses.”

Eyibo said the Attorney General of the Federation is one of the defendants in the suit but that the Senate is not party to the suit. “We’re not suing them (the Senate), we’re just seeking legal interpretations of the sections raised above,” he said.

The bone of the contention in the JCCR is over the designation for Deputy Speaker of the House in the committee. The Senate wants him to be ‘vice-chairman’ while the House members insist on him being ‘co-chairman.’

A meeting between the principal officers of the two chambers is billed for tomorrow to try to break the deadlock.

But Deputy Majority Leader of the Senate Senator Victor Ndoma-Egba (SAN) told Daily Trust by telephone yesterday that the Senate will not concede to the House.

“It is not the issue of conceding anything to the House. The Senate will be guided by the provision of the Constitution in all that we do. So I don’t think it is the issue of conceding,” he said.In spite of the crisis, the Deputy Speaker Alhaji Usman Bayero Nafada has asked Nigerians to participate actively in the amendment of the constitution by the National Assembly, saying that the country deserves to have a constitution that meets the aspiration of all Nigerians.

In a statement by his Special Adviser on Media and Publicity Hammed Bello, Nafada said when the Coalition for Change visited him that “there is need for Nigerians to put heads together to produce a constitution which is people oriented.”