Reps consider 40 bills on constitutional amendment

The deputy speaker of the House of Representatives and chairman, Constitution Review Committee of the House, Benjamin Okezie Kalu, on Wednesday, said 40 bills seeking alterations to the 1999 Constitution are at various stages of consideration in the House.

Kalu said this during the pre-inaugural meeting of the Constitution Review Committee of the House of Representatives.

He said the nature of Nigeria’s Constitution and the history around how it was made and handed over to a new civilian government in 1999 make it imperative for the parliament to continually revisit the various provisions of the constitution and work towards accomplishing consensus on outstanding constitutional debates.

Kalu also said the 10th House of Representatives will revisit some of the constitutional amendment proposals which did not scale through during the previous assembly.

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“Let me also remind the committee that in the last Constitution Review efforts, there were some key constitution amendment proposals that did not pass either because we did not fully understand their provisions or we did not have enough time to agree on them.

“An example was the proposal to create additional seats for women in federal and state legislative houses. Let us use this opportunity to understand this proposal, hoping that those who are the promoters of this particular amendment will start their advocacy timely and be more thorough and comprehensive, reaching the stakeholders to control the mindsets of their representatives.