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Constitution can only be altered, not overhauled- N’Assembly
Modupe Shodeinde
The National Assembly has said getting a new constitution is almost impossible has there are stringent conditions for it.
Although the Deputy President of the Senate and Chairman of the Senate’s Ad Hoc Committee on Constitution Review, Senator Ovie Omo-Agege, said “It is not impossible but it is difficult.” he added that the only power the Assembly has is to alter the constitution, which is the extant legal order provides for.”
The Senator said this on Politics Today, a current affairs programme on Channels Television monitored on Thursday.
When asked about the possibility of having a new constitution as the 1999 Constitution in operation had been criticised as a fraud imposed by the military on the country.
Omo-Agege said, “Frankly, this very issue has become topical of late. For some of us, we can accept and tolerate that from people who don’t know. But it becomes a little bit perplexing and annoying, in fact, when you hear people who ought to know and indeed do know that we do not have the powers to write a new constitution (call for it). The only power we have is to alter the constitution and that is what the extant legal order provides for.
“The framers of the constitution- and I was not one of them – in their wisdom decided that it would be best to have incremental alterations as opposed to a total overhaul; a total rewrite. And that is why they provided under Section 9 of the Constitution on how to go about this. What the law says is that we can alter any provision of the Constitution. It does not say we can alter all of the provisions of the constitution. And the provision sets out the methodology and the mode for doing just that.
“Don’t forget: those who asked us to do a rewrite, they forget that in Section 9, for you to do a rewrite of a new Constitution, you need to amend Section 9 of the (1999) Constitution. And for you to amend Section 9 of the Constitution, you require four-fifths – in the Senate, that is about 88 senators, of the 109; and 288 of the 360 members of the House of Reps – just for you to amend that Section 9 itself.”
He said while several socio-political and cultural groups, as well as prominent Nigerians, were clamouring for a new constitution, the parliament had yet to receive a memorandum seeking to amend Section 9 of the Constitution.
“That is probably because they know how difficult it is to muster 88 votes out of 109. To even muster two-thirds of the votes is almost impossible, not to talk about four-fifths of the Senate and the House of Representatives.” He said.
According to him, embarking on any process without prior alteration of Section 9 of the 1999 Constitution to provide the mode through which an entirely new constitution could be made, would amount to a gross violation of the oath of allegiance to the constitution.
