By Michael Peter The Sight News
Abuja: A Rights Group, Justice Initiative for the Disadvantaged and Oppressed Persons, JIDOP has said that Nigeria’s Legislature, as presently constituted is illegal, as its make up runs contrary to the provision of the 1999 constitution (as amended).
JIDOP Convener, Mr. Lawman Nzenwa stated this at a press conference held in Abuja on Monday.
Nzenwa in his presentation titled “Returning the Nigeria Legislature to the Path Of Constitutional Democracy as a Panacea For Stable Polity”, argued that the imbalance so created by the current composition of the legislature, particularly the Federal House of Representatives and State Houses of Assembly, is a key reason for various agitations for self determination in parts of the country.
He pointed out, the current imbalance in the composition of the House of Representative, is a result of the failure by the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC to abide by its mandate to delineate constituencies in line with the provision of the constitution.
“What we have today is legislature whose composition is completely off the constitution. We are still feeling very strong that the current agitations for secession, restructuring or negotiated unity are direct consequence of INEC’s refusal to perform its constitutional role of giving the nation constitutional legislature as opposed to dictatorial legislature currently in place”, he said.
“Section 91 of the constitution defines the relationship between membership of a House of Assembly of a State and the number of Seats the State occupies in the House of Representatives.
“Section 91 States that subject to the provision of this Constitution, a House of Assembly of a State shall consist of three or four times the number of seats which that State has in the House of Representatives divided in a way to reflect, as far as possible nearly equal population: provided that a House of Assembly of a State shall consist of not less than twenty-four and not more than forty members”.
He held that if INEC had followed the Constitution in delineating the constituencies, “states such as Adamawa, Gombe, Kebbi, Kogi, Kwara, Plateau, Taraba, Yobe, Zamfara, Abia, Cross River, Ebonyi, Edo, Ekiti, Ogun, Ondo and Osun, Nasarawa and Bayelsa will have more States in the House of Representatives than the number they occupy currently”.
Nzenwa noted that based on the provision of section 91 of the constitution, no State ought to have a minimum of 6 seats and a maximum of 10, stressing that a situation where States like Kano, Anambra, Jigawa, Lagos are assigned more than the required number seats will continue to breed injustice in the country and its attendant consequences.
“It is the constitutional duty of INEC to reconstruct the Legislature. As long as the legislature remains in this present state, stability will continue to elude the polity. Agitations, discomfort with the system and probably mass murder of agitators will continue” he said.
He also argued that it is not possible to restructure the constitution at the moment, stressing that the current legislature by its composition lacks the constitutional powers to amend the Constitution.
He therefore called on Nigerians and the International community to mount the necessary pressure on INEC to reconstruct the Legislature in line with the provision of the Constitution.
Earlier in his remark, the Co-convener, Don Akaegbu stated that the House of Representatives as presently constituted is reflective of inequality and the marginalisation complained about by Nigerians.
Akaegbu insisted that there can never be stability in the polity where “Kano State alone has more seats in the House of Representatives than three other States of Gombe, Yobe and Taraba combined and Lagos with more seats than Ekiti, Ondo and Osun”.
