Ahead of the review of the 1999 Constitution, Deputy Senate President and Chairman of the Senate Adhoc Committee on Review of the document, Senator Ovie Omo Agege, has said his team was determined to rebuff pressures from any quarter.
He gave the assurance at the weekend while speaking on a TVC current affairs programme.
His vow came on the heels of insinuation that the Senate Committee on review of the Constitution would only engage on mere jamboree since it would only take instruction from the Presidency.
The Senator representing Delta Central maintained that members of the Constitution Review Committee were lawmakers who have made landmark achievements in their chosen carriers before becoming legislators and would not allow their names to be soiled.
He said:” I can tell you that as of this moment, we have not received any such pressure or influence peddling. But let me tell you this: the Nigerian Senate is a chamber made up of statesmen. These are people of accomplishments in their previous endeavours before they came to this place. I don’t think these are people who are going to be susceptible to pressures from external forces. These are people who are here to do the right thing.
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“And if you must also know, the Steering Committee of this Constitution Review Committee is populated by the entire leadership of the Senate. I am just the Chairman before you talk about the 56 other senators. We have taken an oath to protect the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. I can assure you that members of this committee and indeed all of the senators of this Ninth Senate will do the right thing. We are not going to succumb to any pressure.”
Reacting to insinuations that the governors were not willing to let go their grip on their state assemblies, he appealed to Nigerians to continue to put pressures on the governors to do the right thing just as he revealed that the 36 governors were unanimous that more powers be moved from the Exclusive to Concurrent Legislative List.
“It is our belief that it behoves on the electorate to mount the requisite pressure on their House of Assembly members.
“In any event, we are also going to be liaising very seriously with the Speakers of the various Houses of Assembly. So before the final vote is taken, we will be able to have a feel of where we are. And if it requires some lobbying of the state governors, so be it.
“I don’t know of any governor in this country today who doesn’t subscribe to the idea that the content of the Exclusive Legislative List is not too cumbersome and there needs to be some shedding of weight. I am sure practically all governors will subscribe to that so we can have some of these powers devolve to the states.”
He further assured that no bill on the alteration of the Constitution would be jettisoned and called on Nigerians to take advantage of the window for the submission of memorandum to his panel.
“Any Nigerian who feels strongly about any issue that ought to be addressed in this exercise has a right within the time stipulated to put their thoughts in writing by way of a memo and submit same to us.
“Upon receipt of that, we will meet as a committee, set up some sub-committees within the main committee that will go to each of the geopolitical zones. There they will reach out and ask people to step forward and speak to the memo that they have already submitted to us.
“Thereafter, we will come back, hold a retreat where we will aggregate the views of the content of the memoranda. And in some cases come up with more bills. This committee will try not to kill any bill. We will rather have all bills go to the floor at plenary and let the Nigerian people, speaking through their elected representatives, make the call as to whether or not those bills should pass. Thereafter, we will go to the various Houses of Assembly to see if those votes can also muster a two-thirds majority of the 36 assemblies. From there, we receive and transmit the successful bills to Mr President for assent.”