The Deputy President of the Senate and Chairman of the Senate’s Ad Hoc Committee on Constitution Review, Senator Ovie Omo-Agege, has said that it is difficult to get a new constitution as most Nigerians are clamouring for.
He said this on Thursday, June 3 on a Channels TV programme, Politics Today, in Abuja.
Omo-Agege while reacting to a question on the possibility of having a new constitution as the current 1999 Constitution had been criticized as a fraud imposed on citizens by the military, said;
“Frankly, this very issue has become topical of late. For some of us, we can accept and tolerate that from people who don’t know. But it becomes a little bit perplexing and annoying, in fact, when you hear people who ought to know and indeed do know that we do not have the powers to write a new constitution (call for it). The only power we have is to alter the constitution and that is what the extant legal order provides for.
“The framers of the constitution ( and I was not one of them) in their wisdom decided that it would be best to have incremental alterations as opposed to a total overhaul; a total rewrite. And that is why they provided under Section 9 of the Constitution on how to go about this.
“What the law says is that we can alter any provision of the Constitution. It does not say we can alter all of the provisions of the constitution. And the provision sets out the methodology and the mode for doing just that.
“Don’t forget, those who asked us to do a rewrite, they forget that in Section 9, for you to do a rewrite of a new Constitution, you need to amend Section 9 of the (1999) Constitution. And for you to amend Section 9 of the Constitution, you require four-fifths – in the Senate, that is about 88 senators, of the 109; and 288 of the 360 members of the House of Reps – just for you to amend that Section 9 itself” he explained.
Omo-Agege revealed that the National Assembly has received over 350 calls on the amendment of the 1999 constitution, he lamented that none of the calls has proposed for an amendment of section 9 of the constitution.
“As I speak to you, we have received more than 350 memorandum on the amendment of the constitution and not one – not one – is requesting an amendment of the Section 9 of the Constitution. That is probably they know how difficult it is to muster 88 votes out of 109. To even muster two-thirds of the votes is almost impossible, not to talk about four-fifths of the Senate and the House of Representatives. But the bottom line is this: under the extant constitution, the only thing we are permitted to do is increment amendment or alteration, and this is not new.”
Explaining section 9 of the 1999 constitution, Omo Agege said;
“Specifically, Section 9 of the constitution empowers the National Assembly to alter the provisions of the constitution and prescribes the manner in which it is to be done.
“Unfortunately, it does not make similar provision or provide mechanism for replacing or re-writing an entirely new constitution.
“To embark on any process without prior alteration of Section 9 of the 1999 Constitution to provide the mode through which an entirely new constitution could be made, would amount to a gross violation of our oath of allegiance to the constitution.”
He however advised the proposers of a new constitution to meet with their lawmakers so that parts of the constitution they are not comfortable with, would be amended.
He also assured that amendments that do not threaten the unity of the country will scale through and will also get the endorsement of the President, Muhammadu Buhari.
