The Kwara State Governor, AbdulRahman AbdulRazaq-led Nigeria Governors’ Forum (NGF) has hosted the Deputy Speaker of the House of Representatives, Benjamin Kalu and key officials of the House’s current amendments of the 1999 Constitution.
The governors pledged their support for the constitutional amendment to the Deputy Speaker who briefed them on its progress.
They stated that they would collaborate with the legislative arm of the government to ensure the processes go smoothly.
In a statement released shortly after the meeting, Kalu described the thirty-six state governors as crucial stakeholders who can’t be ignored in the constitutional review, saying that the country would not have existed without the federating units.
He said: “The governors are major stakeholders, and without the federating units, there is no Nigeria, and if you ignore them, the wheel of progress towards realising our objectives with regards to this constitutional review will be slowed down. And we considered it important to come and engage with them, to bring them up to speed, taking them through our work plan, what we have achieved so far and where we are headed. And we have had a robust discussion, and I must say that the governors made beautiful contributions, and they are in support of the constitution review.
“We also informed them that we are going to be visiting their states and the geopolitical zones to harvest the opinions of the members of the public in their various zones with regards to the thematic areas of the constitution review.
“We informed them that we have received about 161 areas to amend in the constitution and we are going to give them the breakdown of all of them in the coming engagement. This won’t be the first and last engagement. We are going to have a couple of engagements. This is how we want to do it, differently from how it has been done. So, from the beginning, we want them to have input and we have requested for them to send us an anchor person, like a liaison, the person that will engage with the committee to bring their input closer, faster to the committee than it used to be and also to take our feedback to them. That way, it will make it easier that by the time this constitution review gets to the States, it won’t be a difficult issue having the Houses of Assembly do what they are supposed to do with regard to the constitutional provisions and the role they need to play with the two-thirds voting for it.
“The governors spoke generally about the constitution. They were open-minded towards all areas we are trying to look at in the constitution. They were professional in the discussion. They listened and like nationalists, leaders of this nation, they are interested in what will make the nation move forward and were not fixated on any particular thematic area because we led before various thematic areas that we are considering at the moment.”
Confidence Okwuchi
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