Sagay Slams NASS, Accuses Lawmakers Of Making Irrelevant Amendments To Nigeria’s Constitution

Sagay said most of the amendments proposed by the lawmakers do not address the immediate needs of the country and its citizens.

TrackNews reports the PACAC chairman spoke against the backdrop of the National Assembly commencing voting on bills to alter some sections of the 1999 constitution.

In total, the legislators voted on 68 bills during Tuesday’s plenary.

Reacting to the development during an interview with Channels TV, Sagay however knocked the lawmakers, accusing them of ignoring the most important thing Nigeria needs at the moment which he identified as restructuring.

He advocated that the country should return to the 1963 constitution which in his view, provides for true federalism.

“I have gone through most of the items which the national assembly has taken up and unfortunately, it has conformed with what I have felt about their modifications of the constitution,” he said.

“They are totally irrelevant to our needs at the moment. What is necessary and what is causing a lot of problems in the country is the question of restructuring — the question of having a true federalism. They have not touched that at all.

“If I may give an example of what I’m talking about, we should be talking of funding formula for the federation. There should be no federation account.

“We should retain the provisions of the 1963 constitution under which regions, now states, retained 50 percent of its resources, sent 20 percent to the federal government, and sent 30 percent to a distributable pool — to be distributed among the states of the federation in accordance with your level of sufficiency in terms of provisions.

“Under the distributable pool, the least able state — the poorest state — gets more from that pool. Every state, even the rich ones, also gets some. Under that formula, 50 for the state, 20 for the federal government, 30 to the distributable pool.

‘I noticed that a lot of attention was spent on issues that are totally irrelevant with regards to the local government. We should not be talking about local government in the constitution.

“What they should discuss is total removal of the provisions of the local government from the constitution. The constitution shouldn’t tell us what we should do about our local governments. It should not contain a list of our local governments.

“Local government is a state matter. 100 percent, it is a state matter. It has nothing to do with the federal government.

“When you talk about funding of local governments — how to create a special account for LG separate from the state governments — they are irrelevant; it shouldn’t be in the constitution at all.”

Naija News reports that some of the issues voted upon by the lawmakers as regards constitutional amendments during Tuesday’s plenary include pension for lawmakers, special seat consideration for women as lawmakers, financial autonomy for local governments, diaspora voting, among others.