• Senators seek retention of two terms of four years for president, govs • Want immunity clause to stay • Back councils’ autonomy, others • Reps caution varsities against cut-off marks’ disparity UNLIKE other matters where both the Senate and the House of Representatives readily agree, the amendment of the nation’s constitution may have pitted the two chambers of the National Assembly against each other. Besides, the House on Tuesday urged the Federal Ministry of Education to urgently caution universities which are applying higher cut-off marks for candidates of the recent Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME), other than those the Federal Government approved for their ongoing post-UTME screening. During the Senate’s debate on the amendment of the constitution yesterday, members of the upper chamber rejected some proposals that were earlier made by the House. Senators rejected the single-term tenure proposed by the Ike Ekweremadu-led committee on constitution review. But they endorsed the House’s proposal for local council areas’ financial autonomy. Senators who contributed to the debate declared that allowing for single tenure would amount to entrenching dictatorship and a regime of disrespect for transparency. Many senators also rose against the House committee’s recommendation that the immunity clause should be removed from the constitution. Senator Clever Ikisikpo (PDP, Bayelsa) disagreed with the insinuation that the immunity clause leads to impunity by governors and the president. According to him, removing the clause would only result in distracting the afore-said officials from performing their duties. On the controversial six-year tenure for the president and governors, Ikisikpo said: “I don’t agree with the issue of single term of six years. It is undemocratic. It will also encourage corruption because the president will feel that he has only one term and he would be massively corrupt.” Ahmed Lawan (ANPP, Yobe State) argued that “a single term of six years is an investment in disaster, invitation to chaos, anarchy and corruption. “A president should be re-elected if he is worthy of it. I want to urge the Senate to throw away completely the baby and the bath water as long as the six-year single tenure is concerned.” Matthew Nwagwu (Imo North) said: “My people do not support the six-year single term. We supported it when we thought we had zoning in the constitution but since it is not there, we want to go with the four-year term.” Victor Lar (PDP, Plateau State) said: “My people rejected the proposal for six-year single term because it enthrones dictatorship and institutionalises corruption. It will entrench impunity by elected officials.” Some of the proposed changes that enjoyed overwhelming support of lawmakers include financial autonomy for the auditor-general, which Lawan described as “a worthwhile amendment.” He added that they should be empowered to fight corruption. Ikisikpo urged his colleagues to throw away the proposal which sought to remove the president from performing the role of signing the amendments made to the constitution. “If we finish the constitution and refuse to allow the president to sign, it would appear one-sided as if we were arrogating power to ourselves. However, if the president refuses assent to a bill, we have the power in the constitution to veto it,” he said. However, Enyinnaya Abaribe (PDP, Abia State) cautioned his colleagues against the danger of removing the joint account between the states and local councils. He remarked: “Let me take us back to ask ourselves a simple question. Why are we doing this amendment? Since we started this democracy in 1999, we have tried amendment several times. We still came back to deal with the very thing we tried to amend and the question we need to ask ourselves is whether this amendment would stay or we will still do more. “On state and local council joint account, the constitution stipulates that once the fund comes into the account, each state government should add 10 per cent of its own fund and distribute to local councils. But it has been an opportunity for them to hijack the fund. We should ask ourselves if it is possible for us to make the amendment. “Is it possible for us to make law for every aberration in human behaviour? The problem is not the constitution; the problem is the operators of the constitution, who have refused to do the right thing. Until we use our constitution to empower an institution, we would continue to visit our constitution for amendment.” Minister of Education, Prof. Ruquayyat Ahmed Rufa’i, had on June 17, 2013 at a public event involving stakeholders in the tertiary education sector in Abuja announced that the Federal Government’s approved cut-off marks for admission into universities as 180 and that of polytechnics and colleges of education as 150 for the 2013/2014 academic year, urging them to comply with the approval. But the parliament expressed surprise that some institutions, including the Federal University of Technology, Akure (FUTA), University of Lagos (UNILAG), University of Benin (UNIBEN), Obafemi Awolowo University (OAU), and University of Nigeria, Nsukka (UNN) had their post-UTME screening test cut-off mark pegged at 200 and above. Similarly, the Federal University of Technology, Minna and Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Awka (UNIZIK) put theirs at 190 and 200 for science courses respectively.
Posted on: Tue, 09 Jul 2013 23:58:11 +0000
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