Dogara, governors meet on devolution of power, restructuring

The Speaker of House of Representatives, Yakubu Dogara, Wednesday night, met the Nigeria Governors Forum (NGF) to share ideas on the House’s effort at  constitutional amendment.

This followed a similar meeting held between the state chief executives and Deputy Senate President, Ike Ekweremadu last week.

Both houses of the National Assembly have divergent views on key aspects of the ongoing constitutional amendment, thereby delaying its forward movement to the state houses of assembly..

The  House of Representatives had informed the NGF that harmonisation was yet to be done on the positions of both chambers.

Briefing State House corespondents on after the meeting, the Chairman of the NGF, Alhaji Abdulaziz Yari and Zamfara state governor, said the two chambers of the National Assembly would soon harmonize their positions on the constitution amendment.

ALSO READ: Weak, underfunded security cannot protect Nigeria —Dogara

He affirmed that the issues of restructuring and devolution of power would be accommodated in the amendment.

He said: “As a follow up to the briefing by Mr. Deputy Senate President, Mr. Speaker briefed us on the version of the House of Representatives on the constitutional amendment and very soon, they will  harmonisze the two positions.

“As critical stakeholders, they visited us and gave us their input on the other critical areas that are not touched like the area of restructuring, devolution of power among others. All those are going to be looked into and considered for the betterment of our country.”

In his own remarks to correspondents,  Dogara said that he was invited to talk to the governors on most of the  bills being considered in the amendment.

On the governor’s request for expansion of the scope of constitutional amendment, he said only the House could take a decision on the matter.

He added: “Though l am the Speaker, l can tell you that l can only speak where majority of our members have agreed upon. So, it is a bit early for me to conclude. But this is a democracy and in a democracy, the majority matters.

“We are aware of the ongoing agitations in the country. Some are calling for restructuring and some others call it true federalism. This is an issue on the manifestos of the APC. It is our feeling as a very responsive and responsible representatives of the people to ensure that this debate  is done.

“And I agree like l said before that the position of the President that most of the matters and issues should be canvassed at the levels of the National Assembly.

“This is because some of the structural imbalances that we are talking about that need what they call restructuring cannot be corrected just by stroke of the pen. Some of them are actually embedded in the provisions of the constitution.

“Even by pedestrians description of the function of government, the Executive cannot make laws, they cannot amend the constitution. They can only initiate the process in an Executive bill, but it ultimately revolves within the powers of the legislature.

“So, even the committee that is set up by the APC leadership on true federalism, by the time they conclude their work, most of the issues they come out with will require a kind of tinkering of the constitution.

“So, our feeling is that we should not just close the windows to the yearnings of majority of our people. We should listen again to all the stakeholders, listen more to Nigerians and at the end of the day, we will come up with an exercise that meets the expectations and yearnings of our people.

“We will not just amend the constitution for the sake of amending. We will want the exercise to be very impactful. The only way we can get that done is to listen and listen and listen  more.”

The NGF also received briefing from the Nigerian Stock Exchange on how too address the issue of cash crunch in their respective states.