The report of the Senate Committee on the Review of 1999 Constitution on Wednesday disclosed that the President has been stripped of power to ascent to bills passed by the National Assembly.

The Upper Chamber after presentation by the Chairman of the Committee and Deputy Senate President, Senator Ike Ekweremadu, approved amendments to the 1999 Constitution following the
submission of the constitution alteration bill by the state houses of assembly.

Therefore presidential assent will no longer be required for a bill to become law as long as the National Assembly has approved it.
Also in the report of the Committee on the Review of the 1999 Constitution submitted by Ekweremadu 20 states voted against local government autonomy, while 16 states voted in support.

The 20 states that voted against are: Akwa Ibom, Bayelsa, Borno, Cross River, Delta, Ebonyi, Ekiti, Enugu, Jigawa, Kaduna, Kano, Katsina, Kwara, Lagos, Ondo, Osun, Rivers, Taraba, Yobe and Zamfara.
States who gave the yes votes are: Adamawa, Anambra, Abia, Bauchi, Benue, Edo, Gonbe, Imo, Kebbi, Kogi, Nasarawa, Niger, Ogun, Oyo, Plateau
and Sokoto states.

The proposed amendments, which was rejected, indicated that “a local government council not democratically elected shall not be recognised by all
authorities and persons and shall not be entitled to any revenue allocation from the Federation Account or the state government nor exercise any function
exercisable by a local government council under this Constitution or any law for the time being in force; and “Shall stand dissolved at the expiration of a period of four years, commencing from the date the members of the Council were sworn in….”


source: http://theeagleonline.com.ng/senate-strips-president-of-power-to-ascent-to-bills/

Is this constutionally possible by the way rep has not aporoved it

ozoigbondu:
Is this constutionally possible by the way rep has not aporoved it

yes it is. ours is to w8 for the final decision.

The NASS has always retained the veto power to Presidential powers pertaining to Bills duly passed by the NA and this is nothing new. We should understand that the President of this country has ALL the powers guaranteed by the the same constitution to achieve some things in some ways that the constitution does not permit him to do in one other ways.

The amendment says that that the Bill becomes law 30 days after submission to the President for assent and the President has not returned it to the NA for concerns, corrections or inputs. What the amendment did is to tighten the noose to ensure that the NA gets what they want. The questions that democrats should be asking is that no matter who is the President of this country, is 30 days enough for the Office of the CJN to advice the President adequately on the legal implications of some passed Bills for the President to either decide to assent or return back to the NA? Is 30 days enough for the executive to set up legal, infrastructural and financial system to support say a Ministry of Boko Haram should the NA pass the bill? Should the NA, who took probably up to 3 years to pass a bill, force the CJN to study the implications and ramifications of the same bill and advise the President on it adequately within 30 days? How does this help the principle of separation of Powers? Can the President drag a suspect to court and tell the courts that the case must be decided in 30 days? If no, why should another arm of government have such total power over the other?

Again, if the President wants to kill a Bill, all he has to do is to wait till the 29th day and send the Bill to the NA for further clarification, advise or input and keep doing same thing till his/her tenure expires. This is also guaranteed by the same constitution and is part of the check and balances built into the constitution to avoid what some call the tyranny of the Legislature and protect the executive powers.

We need to have more discussion on this, definitely.

APC Doing all they can to gain monopoly power nd also destroy nigeria in their quest for power....the best thing is to dissolve these country nd lets these mallams nd their slaves(westerners) go their way....for christ sake since independence we've been ruled by these mallams nd hypocrates(yoruba) nd yet every thing went from bad to worse....just because a south-south indigene is in power, they wan2 commit sucide...
I'll keep saying it GEJ has only been reasonable president of nigeria..

This is not good! It is totally unacceptable. I and my family, we condemn it!

What is local govt autonomy when the states are not autonomous? We should be talking about granting states autonomy first b4 talking about local govt autonomy. We need state autonomy and not local govt autonomy. Thank God many states did not approve it.

Maccoy1:
APC Doing all they can to gain monopoly power nd also destroy nigeria in their quest for power....the best thing is to dissolve these country nd lets these mallams nd their slaves(westerners) go their way....for christ sake since independence we've been ruled by these mallams nd hypocrates(yoruba) nd yet every thing went from bad to worse....just because a south-south indigene is in power, they wan2 commit sucide...
I'll keep saying it GEJ has only been reasonable president of nigeria..

you do realize that the Senators that vote nill/yes are from different geo-political zones and they represent their respective states not political parties, don't you?

size38:
What is local govt autonomy when the states are not autonomous? We should be talking about granting states autonomy first b4 talking about local govt autonomy. We need state autonomy and not local govt autonomy. Thank God many states did not approve it.

taking a step at a time, I think.
I hope states autonomy will be pass soon

COOL

FrankC3:
The NASS has always retained the veto power to Presidential powers pertaining to Bills duly passed by the NA and this is nothing new. We should understand that the President of this country has ALL the powers guaranteed by the the same constitution to achieve some things in some ways that the constitution does not permit him to do in one other ways.

The amendment says that that the Bill becomes law 30 days after submission to the President for assent and the President has not returned it to the NA for concerns, corrections or inputs. What the amendment did is to tighten the noose to ensure that the NA gets what they want. The questions that democrats should be asking is that no matter who is the President of this country, is 30 days enough for the Office of the CJN to advice the President adequately on the legal implications of some passed Bills for the President to either decide to assent or return back to the NA? Is 30 days enough for the executive to set up legal, infrastructural and financial system to support say a Ministry of Boko Haram should the NA pass the bill? Should the NA, who took probably up to 3 years to pass a bill, force the CJN to study the implications and ramifications of the same bill and advise the President on it adequately within 30 days? How does this help the principle of separation of Powers? Can the President drag a suspect to court and tell the courts that the case must be decided in 30 days? If no, why should another arm of government have such total power over the other?

Again, if the President wants to kill a Bill, all he has to do is to wait till the 29th day and send the Bill to the NA for further clarification, advise or input and keep doing same thing till his/her tenure expires. This is also guaranteed by the same constitution and is part of the check and balances built into the constitution to avoid what some call the tyranny of the Legislature and protect the executive powers.

We need to have more discussion on this, definitely.

Brilliant post.

Another important topic like this is not on front page? What is wrong with Nairaland?

I think its improper! E.g in the u.s the president can decide not to sign into law a bill that he deems unfit for the polity. It reduces the power of the president to a huge extent. The powers that should be reduced is actually that of the senate.

we often blame our President for the bulk of problems we have in this country ,we forget the our NA is our major problems. those guys are mischievious

we often blame our President for the bulk of problems we have in this country ,we forget that the NA is our major problem. those guys are mischievious