CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT AND THE KOGI-EAST CONUNDRUM

In a recent development, the National Assembly passed a resolution, setting up a 74-member committee to revisit the constitutional amendment process which was discarded by the last National Assembly as a result of ignoble Obasanjo administration plan to remain in office beyond its mandate.

The committee, which is chaired by the Deputy Senate President, Senator Ike Ekweremadu, is expected to comprehensively review the 1999 Constitution, which is widely believed to be monumentally obsolescent, with several contrasting and incompatible provisions. In view of the ostensible inadequacies and discrepancies of the constitution, as noticed in the past nine years of operating the constitution, a review of the constitution to ensure that it satisfies the growing needs and aspirations of the Nigerian people, is hence an immediate necessity.

The aptness of a constitutional review at this point in our history has received national acclaim. The current effort, once more provides the nation another opportunity to get it right. The 74-member committee on whose shoulder is this huge task vested has a date to keep with history. The members of this committee thus have the onerous responsibility of bequeathing to Nigeria and Nigerians, a faultless and practicable constitution that would realistically address the minority fears as well as the concerns of the majorities.

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Some of the outstanding vexatious issues as postulated by the Justice Niki Tobi’ Political Reform Conference and the PRONACO Constitution are restructuring the federation, delineation of constituencies, the creation of an additional states, revenue derivation and allocation principles, desirability or otherwise of immunity clause, power rotation, creation of LGAs, power devolution, etc.

Obviously smarting from the failed experience or inexperience of the last amendment exercise in which “the proverbial rain fell on some senators and it didn’t fall on others”, NASS has been turned into a theater of absurd intrigues and power play as membership of this seemingly all-important committee suddenly becomes a patronage distribution mechanism.

To reduce tension and bickering, the Senate President announced a number of criteria for membership, to wit: cognate experience and seniority in the Senate, the three senators from each state have, as a prelude to the intervention of the selection committee, been asked to agree among themselves on who should represent their states on the committee. While some states reached consensus easily, legislative mayhem has been the case in most of the states.

The fact that the leaderships of the senate and the House of Representatives attach great importance to the membership of the JCCR as part of an agenda to push through certain positions into the report that would encapsulate the proposed amendments for debate on the floors of the National Assembly did not also help matters. Also noteworthy is the unhealthy relationship between Mark’s senate and Bankole’s House, which is not unconnected with Mark’s strong backing and preference for Patricia Etteh.

Reportedly, some states are blowing hot now as a result deliberate instigation by the leadership of its preferred choice against the consensus of the majority senators in the state. Kogi state where Senator Nicholas Ugbane (representing Kogi-East) as the most experienced senator, should ordinarily represent the state on the JCCR remains a case in point. Senators Smart Adeyemi and Otaru Ohize appeared to have connived and pushed the selection of Adeyemi into the JCRR leaving Senator Ugbane helpless. Even though the House of Representatives is yet to constitute theirs, there is no indication that most senior Member of the House who is also from Kogi-East will eventually make it when it is finally constituted.

The foregoing leaves Kogi-East and all her aspirations for equitable and effective representation in the Nigerian Federalism in a very precarious and seemingly helpless situation. The all-important but vexatious issue of Local Government creation is very pivotal to the realisation of these aspirations as it is a common consensus that Kogi-East, with a bogus Nine LGA structure, still remains largely unrepresented in the national scheme of things as it is made to share equally all allocations/federal positions to the state with its less populated neighbours.

Judging from the intense scheming and lobbying for membership of this constitutional review committee by NASS members, there is no gainsaying the inescapable fact that the JCCR membership will not only advertently confer serious privileges on its members but also on their constituencies as each constituency in Nigeria is looking forward to the committee to recommend favourable amendments like state creation, LGA creation, delineation, increased revenue allocation, e.t.c

It has thus become painfully manifest that Kogi-East has yet lost the battle for supremacy, competitive edge and relevance in the comity of senatorial zones that make up our beleaguered federation with the wily-nily exclusion (or is it outsmarting?) of the only Senator from the zone. And with the monumental docility and legislative impotence munificently displayed by the three Kogi-East Representatives in the House one wont be surprised that they will all be excluded when the House finally sends it own list to the Senate because they will either be in at home attending one pointless launching, burial or merry-making, or in Lokoja lobbying Lugard House for one contract or pushing a godson for appointment in the state EXCO, or better still in one corner of Abuja (Specifically Romy Hotel, Garki II, Ibro Hotel, Wuse zone 5 or Rita Lori Hotel, Area 8, where ladies are made to entertain them in nudity) lavishing their legislative hours on inanities, profanities and other fantasies with telling consequences on Kogi-East’s future.

A visit to these debased joints where debauchery and foolery are elevated to Mephistophelean heights by our Honourable(?) Representatives will clearly reveal the reason for their unflattering and dumb presence in the Assembly. The height of wastage of Constituency Development funds in the midst of an astonishing absence of an organised thought process for Kogi-East's future put on rabid display by these men can best be imagined than seen as it has the capacity to instigate righteous and unrestrained indignation at a very large scale.

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For a zone that houses the ninth largest tribe in Nigeria but cannot boast of a member in the JCCR, Kogi-East is thus stranded at the crossroad of putting its aspirations on the front-burner of national discourse through a strong representative voice in the National Assembly, of strengthening the legislative instruments of representation constitutionally granted to her as a zone, of ensuring a favourable consideration for its proposal for the creation of a minimum of 3 LGAs from the present Dekina LGA, of making her National Assembly members realize that the on-going schism between them over their naked ambition to succeed Gov. Idris in 2012 is affecting the quality of representation they were elected to offer to zone, of impressing it on her army of pretender-contenders posturing for Lugard House come 2012 that the success of their ambition is dependent on the level of their contributions to the realisation of the zone’s aspirations by the JCCR, of ensuring a proper delineation of constituencies to accurately represent their 56% population strength in Kogi State, and finally of making Kogi-East work again!

 

By Atâyi Babs ,

Media Practitioner

Ikoyi, Lagos.

atayibabs@yahoo.com