The Deputy Senate President and Chairman of the Constitutional Review Committee, Sen. Ike Ekweremadu, has directed that voting on local government autonomy be stopped entirely. He made this announcement through a press statement signed on his behalf by Innocent Mebiri (Clerk of the Senate Committee on the Review of the 1999 Constitution).

The announcement explained why this new but vital development emerged, stating that: “This has been necessitated by the need to preserve the integrity and credibility of the process as there are attempts by some unpatriotic elements to manipulate the ongoing SMS and online opinion poll on key issues in the present Constitution Amendment Project.  

There is currently a text message circulating around the country which claims that the Senate is presently voting on a Bill aimed at carving out some large portions of land in certain parts of the country as grazing reserves for the Fulani.

The text message therefore invites Nigerians to send “NO” response to 20052 which is the same short code being used by the Committee to poll the opinion of Nigerians on issues in the Constitution Review.   The Committee condemned this action in its entirety and called on Nigerians to disregard the text message, as it was a devious propaganda to manoeuvre the outcome of the efforts of the Committee to ensure popular participation by Nigerians in the Constitution Amendment Project.  

The Senate is not currently sitting in plenary, the 20052 short code is entirely dedicated by the Committee to polling the opinion of Nigerians on Constitution Amendment issues and has absolutely nothing to do with grazing reserves.” Despite the cancellation of the voting on the matter of local government autonomy “the opinion poll will resume in earnest.”, the statement read.  

The process of adopting the opinion poll was also announced by the DSP in a press statement signed by Uche Anichukwu, Special Adviser (Media) to the Deputy President of the Senate. The statement explained why the choice of polling opinions of Nigerians for the Constitution Amendment process was adopted in the first place.

In the statement Senator Ekweremadu had further called on Nigerians, “to take advantage of the ongoing Short Message Service and online opinion poll in the ongoing Constitution Review Project to air their views on critical matters concerning the Nigerian state” He explained that: “The opinion poll was in keeping with the promise and commitment of the Committee to popular participation, inclusivity, and transparency in the ongoing Constitution Amendment process. He emphasised that the major aims of the poll were to “demystify constitution-making, get more Nigerians involved, and correct the wrong perception of constitution-making as an elite’s affair.”

Dudu_Negro: you would think, given the periodic incursion of fulani into farmlands in the. west and the the bloody aftermath, that yorubas would have this grazing rights proposal as a red flag on the public airwaves, with instructions on how to vote to defeat the bill. nollywood, owambe and other trivials have our attention at moment. meanwhile when the bill passes into law it will be too late to undo and we will start cussing northerner and label them backward and uneducated. we need a redefinition for who is educated in nigeria and who is not.

personally, hisblud, i think you took the right action by voting NO. better to err on the side of due dilligence and vote NO than to follow their confused instruction and abstain in default.

i searched for the proper guideline and could not find any. NASS is deliberately in a scam to cause confusion and thereby rig the bill through.