Senate constitutional amendment: Explaining the four votes that failed

DESCRIBED as a groundbreaking and historic parliamentary exercise, the Constitution Review vote that was conducted by the 8th Senate on Wednesday, July 26th, is a clear reflection of the political situation that is currently at play in the nation.

The atmosphere of distrust and the division along regional lines that currently exists in the country came into play in the voting patterns of Senators on that faithful Wednesday afternoon.

Although a commendable stride for the Abubakar Bukola Saraki-led Senate, four critical clauses failed to pass on that day and I believe the following are the reasons those clauses failed to fly.

Devolution of Powers

The vote on the ‘Devolution of Powers’ clause, which failed by a count of 48 against and 46 in favour, demonstrates that our country is split – almost down the middle along political interests. With Biafra agitations in the South-East; calls for the restructuring of the federation and true federalism in the South-West and fears over power decentralisation and resource control in the North, everybody voted to protect the interests of their constituents. This is because the ‘Devolution of Powers’ amendment was aimed at altering the provisions of the 1999 Constitution to move certain items from the Exclusive Legislative List to the Concurrent Legislative List to give more legislative powers to states

Without the aforementioned issues being at the forefront of our national discourse, say, for example, if this Constitution Review exercise had taken place a year ago, many more Senators from the North, who were clearly opposed to whittling down the power at the centre, would probably have voted for it. The North saw devolution of powers as an attempt to smuggle in restructuring through the back door.

Land Use Act

The same reason could be adduced for the failure of the vote on the ‘Land Use Act’, which was aimed at removing this clause from the Constitution. As early as Tuesday, a day before the actual vote, the Senators of the 8th Assembly were again sharply divided along geopolitical interests. The Northern Senators, who again opposed the removal of this clause, moved against its passage, stating that it would lead to “resource control through the back door.” This must be why, when the votes were tallied, again, this clause failed by 46 votes in favour, and 44 votes against.

Affirmative Action for Women

Similarly, the affirmative action bid for women in appointed positions suffered a setback at the Senate, as this time, religious, cultural and ethnic interests came into play. The amendment essentially sought to guarantee at least 35 per cent of ministerial appointments at the federal level for women. This clause, which failed by a vote of 61 in favor and 35 against, would have passed if it was a vote that required a simple majority. However, being a Constitutional amendment exercise, it required a 2/3rd majority vote.

It is important to note that the tally of 61 votes on bill on the affirmative action represents a significant and progressive step, as the Upper Chamber now has over 60 members who believe in the affirmative action for women.​ With this development, advocates of women rights can boast of achieving a level of progress compared to the past few years.

State Creation and Boundary Adjustment

The clause on ‘State Creation’, which sought to clarify the process of establishing new states would have allowed only democratically elected local government councils to participate in the process of state creation and boundary adjustment, thereby, eliminating the participation of appointed local government caretaker committees to participate in this process.

I believe that this clause failed because a lot of the legislators misunderstood the implications. It was supposed to further strengthen the constitutional provisions that local government areas are to be governed by constitutionally elected chairmen and councillors instead of the nominees of the governors, who are always called caretaker committees. Thus, by the proposed provision, the contraption called caretaker committee members will not participate in constitutional assignments like boundary adjustment and creation of states. However, many Senators appeared to have thought that the provision was about state creation, with the vote failing by a tally of 47 to 48.

• Adamu writes from Kaduna