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Sunday, December 23, 2012

Govs frustrating constitution amendment – Senator

The Punch - Nigeria's Most Widely Read Newspaper
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Govs frustrating constitution amendment – Senator
Dec 23rd 2012, 23:29

Chairman of the Senate Committee on the Federal Capital Territory, Senator Smart Adeyemi, claims governors are frustrating the efforts of the National Assembly to amend the 1999 Constitution because they don't want the legislature and the local governments to be independent.

Adeyemi, who decried the development, told reporters in Abuja on Sunday that ongoing move to review the constitution might not be successful due to the position of the governors.

He said, “They (the governors) are opposed to state creation because they believe it will reduce their empires. They are against the removal of immunity clause because they don't want their atrocities exposed while in office. And they are against the autonomy of the state Houses of Assembly because they want to enslave them.

“If we have governors who are progressives, the constitution amendment would be successful. They will not allow the constitution amendment to be successful. They are going to derail it.

“The fundamental aspect of the constitution amendment is the autonomy. If we cannot get the state assemblies to be autonomous, there will be no development and the standard of living of the people will be static.”

The lawmaker added, “The local government reform of 1976 was meant to bring governance closer to the people, and subsequent constitution amendments recognised local governments as the third tier of government.

“The governors are demanding more powers for the states from the Federal Government while they are against freedom for another tier of government.

“With the way some of the governors are behaving, you can have an idea of the kind of government they are going to run. How can they be against local government autonomy? Sitting on the resources meant for local government is unconstitutional.”

Meanwhile, the Senate Committee on Drugs, Narcotics and Anticorruption says the rating of Nigeria by Transparency International on corruption will change with the signing into law of the Money Laundering (Prohibition Act) Amendment Bill and the Anti-Terrorism Act (Amendment) Bill.

Chairman of the committee, Senator Victor Lar, in a telephone interview with our correspondent, said the rating was based on established institutional and legal frameworks.

He said, “The problem is that they tend to have a stereotype mechanism that must be in place before a country can be judged as corruption free.

“The prospect of money laundering activities as an impetus for terrorism financing is one of the parameters for measuring the corruption status of a country.

“We have been under observation for about two years and that is why we have been trying to rush the amendments to the Terrorism and the Money Laundering Acts.”

“With these laws not yet in place and being part of the indices for measuring the corruption situation in the country, there is the tendency that we will be rated low.”

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