House Adopts National Conference Report for Constitution Review

Damilola Oyedele in Abuja
As the agitation for Nigeria’s restructuring grows louder, the House of Representatives Special Ad Hoc Committee on the Review of the 1999 Constitution has adopted the 2014 report of the National Conference as one of its working documents.

The decision by the committee is in defiance of the opposition of the Muhammadu Buhari-led administration to the implementation of the report.

President Muhammadu Buhari has never hidden his objection to the report of the National Conference convened by his predecessor former President Goodluck Jonathan, and recently said that he had never read it and that the document would be confined to history.

However, the House committee on the constitution review has elected to follow a different path, as its decision to adopt the report was taken at a recent retreat presided over by the Deputy Speaker, Hon. Yussuff Sulaimon Lasun, who is also the chairman of the committee.

According to a statement by the Chief Press Secretary to the deputy speaker, Mr. Wole Oladimeji, copies of the report had already been circulated among the members of the committee.
All 53 members of the constitution review committee are expected to study the report and make recommendations to the committee, the statement added.

It said that the consultants to the committee were also working on the report to advise the committee properly.
“Some of the salient proposals in the report would be turned into draft bills which would be presented to the House for adoption and passage,” the statement said.

The committee would continue its work after it resumes from the Sallah recess.
Some key proposals of the National Conference report include fiscal federalism, creation of state police, creation of 18 more states of the federation, resource control, power sharing, and independent candidacy.