FG should prepare bills from confab outcome, not submit raw report – Enang

The National Conference has just ended and it is expected that the report will be presented to the National Assembly by President Goodluck Jonathan, how will you describe this confab compared to the previous ones?I want to take this opportunity to congratulate Hon. Justice Idris Kutigi, Justice of the Supreme Court as he then was, […]

The National Conference has just ended and it is expected that the report will be presented to the National Assembly by President Goodluck Jonathan, how will you describe this confab compared to the previous ones?
I want to take this opportunity to congratulate Hon. Justice Idris Kutigi, Justice of the Supreme Court as he then was, Professor Bolaji Akinyemi and all conference members for a successful conference. Now that they have concluded their work I can speak on the conference. Because I took a position that I will not speak on any matter they were discussing so that I won’t give the impression that whatever they will bring we won’t or will consider or that I have prejudged opinion. But as they submit their report to the president today, Mr. President should not forward their report to the National Assembly in its raw form.

Why?
You remember that former president Olusegun Obasanjo on the Political Reform Conference I think he brought the report in three, three sets to the National Assembly. We did not work on it because time was against us. But what I want President Jonathan to do is to receive the report, present it before the Federal Executive Council, set up a white paper drafting committee and for that he should use members of the secretariat of the national conference as it were and let them work as part of the committee that will draft the white paper.
The white paper will take issues that are administrative and then give the opinion of government on what should be done. And those issues that are administrative, the government will say that yes, you have suggested that these issues should be done administratively but the constitution does now allow that. Other issues are to be done by the state and local governments and as such they cannot be done unless the constitution is amended.
Now, matters that are for federal administrative workings, you now say I accept or reject; matters that are administrative, you get permanent secretaries to work on them; matters that are of revenue allocation you get members of the Revenue Mobilisation Allocation and Fiscal Commission, some former finance commissioners and let them look at them;  matters that concern amendments to existing laws, you  send them to the office of the Attorney General of the Federation, let them prepare amendments to the laws and send them to the National Assembly as proposed amendments; and matters that relate to amendment of the constitution, you now propose the amendments to the constitution and submit that to the National Assembly by way of bills because that is the only way they could be done.
Mr. President should not just bring the raw report and lay it before us. He should prepare bills and each of these bills should be accompanied by the full copies of the report. It should be about 500 copies of the report. 460 plus about 40 and that is about 500 for the House of Representatives and then about 150-200 for the Senate. He should do this and lay them before us with each of the proposed bills so that the honesty will be shown. He should not just bring it and dump.

What is your take on calls for a referendum?
This is one issue that people are sentimental about, that you have to take it through a referendum. This report can only go through a referendum if the constitution is amended to allow for making of a new constitution through a referendum. And that means that we must pass this constitutional amendment at the national level, go through to the 36 State Houses of Assembly and we must wait for them to bring their returns to see how many of them have accepted it? It is only if 24 or 25 of the State Houses of Assembly have accepted that we will start considering the referendum because the constitution has stated in itself the procedure by which it has to be amended. So you cannot amend the constitution now by way of referendum. To do a referendum, we must have to do another law that allows Nigerians to conduct a referendum. We have been conducting what we call a referendum but it depends on what each person understands as referendum. When we needed to amend the constitution we took it through 360 federal constituencies and 109 senatorial districts and local government areas, that was referendum in its merit but which was not backed by law.
After that Nigerians have now talked at the confab and that talk is a quasi-referendum because what they have done through appointive representation is now what they will submit to a legislative body. Their sitting was not a legislative body but an advisory body. That is why we did not make any law authorising the President to set it up. The President has powers to set up any committee to advise him on any matter.

Are you saying that there is no provision in the constitution which allows for referendum?
There is none. I do not see a provision in the constitution which mentions referendum. The only place which mentions referendum is in the proposed amendment to the constitution as proposed by the Senate which has not been considered by the House of Representatives and so it is not a law yet. It cannot be acted upon until it has gone through a complete legislative process, passing through the House, going to the State Houses of Assembly and coming back with at least 25 states approving it, only then can you bring the issue of referendum.

What about the calls for a new constitution?
This is something that has been raised by the conference which is very vital and that is when they said there’s proposal for a new constitution. And now that proposal will throw up one thing. That if you make a new constitution completely, every person who has completed his term in office can now come back and contest and say I am contesting under a new constitution, which is the danger. Obasanjo can come back and say I am a fresh person since the election I contested two times was under the former constitution. Goodluck Jonathan is doing his second term, if you makes a new constitution now, it will be said that he wants to go for a first fresh term so that he can do another second term. It is dangerous for us to even think of enacting a new constitution. Because no matter how reasonable and rationale your decision is, if the public is psych up to hate it, no matter the academic ingredient, it still stands as a wrong decision because the people have been psyched to resist it. Therefore, I will not want any proposal to bring in a new constitution. I want us to work on an amendment to every section of the 1999 Constitution that we consider amendable.
I saw some respected professors of law on television telling us how to conduct a referendum. I want to tell them that how to write thesis and give another person who shares your opinion to mark it for you and pass and get a PhD is different from passing a legislation and considering the constitution. And I will want any person who doubts this to take an originating writ to the Federal High Court or High Court of the Federal Capital Territory and ask a declaratory question whether or not under the 1999 Constitution there can be a referendum for the purpose of amending the constitution and the result of that referendum become law without passing through the National Assembly? Just ask that simple question and let the High Court answer. If you are not satisfied go to the Court of Appeal and then to the Supreme Court because we in the legislature will not want to do anything that will be illegal. Because if we pass a law and the court strikes it out then we are seen as not being able to be termed as a good legislative House. So we will not be party to any illegality.

Can you tell us briefly the legislative procedure that the report will go through when it is eventually presented before you?
I will not tell you the procedure it will go through when it is tabled, I can only tell you when it is tabled because I do not know in what form it will be tabled; whether it will come by way of bills, or submission to the National Assembly or it will come by way of the president addressing the nation on the budget. It is only when you know the form and it has been laid before us that you can tell the legislative procedure it will go through. We cannot anticipate a thing.

But is there time for you to work on the report, the primaries are already here with the election very close. What time does the National Assembly have to consider the report?
We cannot talk of time because we have not yet been given anything, so the question of time running out or no time does not arise. Who knows if the President will even lay the report before the National Assembly? Who knows whether he will have to take two to four months to study and decide which part he will bring to us? It is what happens that will determine what the legislature will do.

Any take on some of the key issues recommended by the conference?
Those matters are not yet before the National Assembly and I will not want to speak on the yes or no of it so that I will not give impression that when those things come I will eventually throw them away because I have not read the report. I only heard about the summary report which may be a misrepresentation. So I will not speak on any of the points raised. As a Senator I should speak on the basis of a document submitted to me and not that which has been submitted to another person.