Reviving 4th Constitutional Amendment Bill

In a development that signals a break with parliamentary tradition, the National Assembly is contemplating sending to President Muhammadu Buhari for assent portions of the Fourth Constitution Amendment Bill earlier passed by the Seventh National Assembly. However, Speaker of the House of Representatives Yakubu Dogara hinted that the bill would be revived. He spoke while […]

In a development that signals a break with parliamentary tradition, the National Assembly is contemplating sending to President Muhammadu Buhari for assent portions of the Fourth Constitution Amendment Bill earlier passed by the Seventh National Assembly. However, Speaker of the House of Representatives Yakubu Dogara hinted that the bill would be revived. He spoke while receiving in his office Chief Observer Mr. Santiago Fisas, who presented to him the Report of the 2015 Elections European Union Observer Mission in Nigeria.
The affected portions are those in respect of which former President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan withheld assent when the Bill was forwarded to him in the twilight of his tenure. Jonathan had expressed his denial of assent through a correspondence in which he cited 12 areas of objection. In the first place was that the amendments did not meet key requirements of Section 9(3) of the 1999 Constitution. That section requires that such amendments cannot be passed unless they enjoy the votes of four fifths of all the members of the Senate and House of Representatives respectively, as well as the resolution of at least 24 out of the 36 State Houses of Assembly. In his correspondence at that time Jonathan had written that “in view of the foregoing and absence of credible evidence that the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria (Fourth Alteration) Act 2015 satisfied the strict requirements of Section 9(3) of the 1999 Constitution, it will be unconstitutional for me to assent to it.”
Following the denial of assent the National Assembly had contemplated overriding the then President if after 30 days of submission he did not assent to the Bill. This development led to then Attorney General of the Federation Mohamed Bello Adoke, acting on behalf of the executive arm, suing the National Assembly at the Supreme Court. The apex court on its part declined to pass a ruling on the matter and instead allowed the parties, the executive and the legislature, to settle the matter out of court. This outcome led to the National Assembly withdrawing the ‘offensive’ clauses. Yet Jonathan did not assent to the Bill before vacating office. The onus now lies on President Buhari to give effect to the Bill if presented to him again by the National Assembly, as Dogara is now advocating. 
However for Buhari to grant assent to such a Bill without question, even when the legislation had failed to win assent by his predecessor on the basis of controversy over claims and counter claims of infractions and otherwise, will not be advisable. The President needs to find out why Jonathan denied the Bill a Presidential assent with such firmness, even to the point of resorting to the Supreme Court to compel the National Assembly to back track. Did the Seventh National Assembly actually violate the provision of the constitution as alleged in Jonathan’s letter? If the National Assembly actually acted in breach of the constitution, it would imply that the Bill in all the vaunted elegance of its provisions, was actually procured unlawfully and thereby remains ineligible for assent by the president.
On his part Dogara needs to assure Nigerians that the Bill he is advocating resubmitting to Buhari meets all conditions as provided by law in order to avoid rigmarole between the National Assembly and the executive, since the latter is not expected to act in celebration of illegality.  Beyond that, even if the Bill meets all due conditions of passage, the need exists to grant the Buhari administration the benefit of a fresh look at the Bill before being goaded into rash action.