Constitution: House Votes LG Autonomy, State Creation, Removes Immunity Clause. National assembly *.Scraps SIECs By Onwuka Nzeshi After eight hours of suspense, the results of the voting on the report of the House Ad hoc Committee on Constitution Review wasreleased Wednesday with the lawmakers endorsing the autonomy of local government councils, removal of the immunity clause as well as the simplification of the creation of new states. Unlike what obtained in the Senate, an overwhelming 293 lawmakers voted in favour of local council autonomy; 39 were against while seven abstained. They, however, insistedon a tenure of two terms of four years for the president, governors and chairmen of local councils. The lower chamber of the National Assembly also approved independent candidacy in elections into political offices; scrapped the state Independent Electoral Commissions and transferred their responsibilities to the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC). Other highlights include the endorsement of the proposal to separate theOffice of the Attorney General of the Federationfrom the Minister of Justice; Auditor General of the Federation from the Auditor General of the Federal Government. Similarly, the Office of the Auditor General of the Federation has been placed on first line charge. The House has also approved the clause transferring critical sectors such as railway and power to the Concurrent List while retaining Health, Labour and Wages on the Exclusive Legislative List. All the 85 clauses considered passed the mandatory two third (240) votes of the 360-member chamber. The House had resorted to manual system of voting after the emergency electronic voting platform deployedin the chamber to enhance voting crashed. The platform which was installed by NigComSat on Tuesday, failed as the lawmakers logged on to it using their handheld devices. Experts in Information Technology disclosed that the platform failed because it operated through a server that lacked the capacity to accommodate 360 persons voting simultaneously. Even at that, an attempt to takethe voting in phases did not also help matters. The process had earlier begun with the accreditation of members during which the lawmakers were required to register their names and indicate their political parties. It was followed by a series of tutorials and trials to ascertain the functionality of the equipment. However, by 1.p.m, whenit became obvious that they were not making any headway with the electronic platform, Speaker of the House, Hon. Aminu Tambuwal, announced the switch over to the manual option. The leadership of the House, Tambuwal said, had made provision for the paper option following the challenges it had faced with the electronic voting system. A total of 339 members were accredited for the manual voting and each was given a customised copy of the proposed alterations to the 1999 Constitution. On the document were provisions for the name, constituency, state and political party of the lawmaker. There was also a signature column on eachpage of the document where members were expected to authenticate their decision on each clause. Each member was required to vote Yes, No or Abstain against each of 87 clauses slated for amendment. However, two clauses were dropped from the list when it was discovered that they had not passed the due process before they were included among areas to be amended in the constitution. One of the clauses stepped down was the bid to amend the provisions of Section 60 to provide immunity against civil or criminal proceedings against members of the NationalAssembly in the discharge of their legislative functions. The other was the amendment of Section 101 to provide a similar immunity for members of the State Houses of Assembly. The voting eventually started at 1.35pm and lasted up till 3.00pm. Thereafter, the House went into a long wait to allow for the collation of the results which were eventually announced at 11.43:p.m.
Posted on: Thu, 25 Jul 2013 09:15:50 +0000
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