The House of Representatives yesterday passed for second reading, a bill seeking to amend the 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria to make the Court of Appeal the final arbiter in disputes involving governorship, National and State House of assembly elections.
The bill is among the 39 constitution amendment bills that were passed through second reading on the floor of the House.
The passage of the bills comes as the House prepares to go on Sallah and Easter breaks and on the heels of the controversy that trails the adoption of the declaration of state of emergency declared by President Bola Ahmed Tinubu in Rivers State last week.
The bills were passed after they were presented for second reading through a motion by the House Leader, Rep. Julius Ihonvbre and referred to the House Committee on Constitution Review, chaired by the Deputy Speaker, Benjamin Kalu, for further legislative actions.
The proposed legislation was sponsored by the lawmaker representing Ndokwa East/Ndokwa West/Ukwani Federal Constituency of Delta State, Nnamdi Ezechi.
Daily Trust reports that before now, electoral disputes involving governorship election are decided by the Supreme Court as the final arbiter, while that of the National and State Assemblies end at the Court of Appeal.
However, the proposed amendment seeks to abridge the timeline involved in deciding governorship election disputes by making the Appeal Court the final arbiter.
Leading the debate on the general principles of the bill, Ezechi said the proposed legislation seeks to alter the provision of sub-section (3) of Section 246 of the 1999 Constitution as amended.
He said the bill seeks to delete the existing subsection (3) and substitute a new subsection (3) to read, “The decisions of the Court of Appeal in respect of appeals arising from the Governorship, National and State Houses of Assembly election petitions shall be final.”
He said, “Mr Speaker, the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria (Second Alteration) Act of 2010 altered Section 246 subsection (1) by providing in paragraphs (b) and (c) that appeals to the Court of Appeal shall be as of right from the decisions of the National and State Houses of Assembly and decisions of the Governorship Election Tribunals as to whether a person has been validly elected as a lawmaker or a governor or whether his tenure has ceased or his seat has become vacant.
“The second alteration specifically provided in Section 246 subsection (3) that the decisions of the Court of Appeal arising from the National and State Houses of Assembly election petitions shall be final.
“However, the amendment did not say anything about the Governorship Election Petition, thereby allowing all governorship election petitions to proceed to the apex court (Supreme Court). This bill is trying to amend the present provision of Section 246 subsection (3) by making the Court of Appeal the final appeal court for all election petitions.”
According to the PDP lawmaker, “This would enable the final winner of a governorship election to be known without delay. If the person declared as winner by the Independent National Electoral Commission wins in the Court of Appeal, it would allow him to settle down and face the business of governance without distraction.”
He also noted that terminating election disputes at the appellate court would save costs, saying, “If such petitions end in the Court of Appeal, it would reduce the financial resources being wasted by the parties in prosecuting such cases to the Supreme Court.”
He continued, “We should note that the original provision of Section 246 (1)(b) stated that an appeal shall lie as of right from the decisions of the National Assembly Election Tribunals and Governorship and Legislative Houses Tribunals on the issues mentioned above.
“Subsection (3) of the said section clearly stated that the decisions of the Court of Appeal in respect of appeals arising from election petitions shall be final.”
Among the bills passed through second reading, were the Bill for an Act to alter the Constitution to establish the National Local Government Electoral Commission, as an independent body responsible for organising, conducting and supervising elections into the offices of chairmen, vice chairmen and councilors of all the local government councils across the federation.
The proposed legislation sponsored by the Deputy Speaker, Benjamin Okezie Kalu and eight other lawmakers, was presented for second reading by the House leader, Julius Ihonvbere.
According to the sponsor and co-sponsors, the commission, when established, will ensure the credibility, transparency and fairness of local government elections and promote democratic governance at the grassroots.
The bill’s draft states that the National Local Government Electoral Commission shall consist of chairman and 37 other members representing 36 states of the Federation and the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja.
It also states that the chairman, who shall be the Chief Electoral Officer, and members of the board shall be appointed by the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, on the recommendations of the National Council of States and subject to the confirmation of the Senate.
The commission is expected to provide periodic reports on its activities and the outcomes of local government elections to the President, the National Assembly, and the general public, thereby promoting transparency and accountability in its operations.
Also among the constitution amendment bills passed for second reading is the bill seeking to mandate the Independent National Electoral Commission to conduct presidential, governorship, National Assembly, state assemblies and local government elections on the same day.
The proposed legislation was sponsored by Reps Ikenga Ugochinyere, Francis Ejiroghene Waive and 34 other lawmakers.
Among the other bills that scaled second reading were those seeking to regulate political party registration; determination of electoral disputes before swearing-in winners of elections; empowering INEC to conduct LG elections and regulation of election time lines, among others.
Daily Trust reports that perennial constitution amendment exercises by the National Assembly were characterised by proposals that kept resurfacing despite gulping billions of naira in every legislative session.
While a number of the constitution amendment proposals scaled through, a greater number of them failed at the end of the rigorous legislative processes.
The federal parliament had, from the 5th to the current 10th National Assembly, made several attempts to amend some provisions of the 1999 Constitution to no avail.
At every session, the parliament officially spends not less than N1 billion shared equally between the Senate and the House of Representatives.
The first attempt at amending the 1999 Constitution failed woefully in the 5th National Assembly under the chairmanship of former Deputy Senate President Ibrahim Mantu and Deputy Speaker Austin Okpara.
The exercise failed when an attempt was made to smuggle the purported third term agenda of then President Olusegun Obasanjo, when the lawmakers discovered that a clause to that effect was allegedly inserted into the document.
The bill was roundly rejected
The second attempt to review the constitution in the 6th Assembly under the chairmanship of Senator Ike Ekweremadu and Representative Usman Bayero Nafada was said to be successful, as some sections were successfully amended.
These included the financial autonomy of the National Assembly, which gave it the power to draw its funds directly from the federation account, otherwise known as the first-line charge.
In the 7th and 8th assemblies, the constitution review exercise was a mixed bag of successful and failed amendment attempts.
Chief among the failed attempts was the provision stripping the president of the power to sign the constitution amendments, which is required for them to become law.
In the 9th assembly under Senate President Ahmad Lawan and Speaker Femi Gbajabiamila, while a number of constitution amendments were approved and assented to, a greater number of the bills were rejected.