• Speaker Tambuwal cancels presentation
• Groups allege distortions in document
• Lawmakers seek referendum in Bakassi
THOUGH the report on the constitution review conducted by the House of Representatives has not been made public, there is already the fear that it may have been marred by a credibility crisis.
What paved the way to this anxiety was the failure of an attempt to present the result of the review yesterday amid complaints that some stakeholders were not fully carried along.
Also, the House Thursday urged the Federal Government to conduct a referendum on the embattled Bakassi Peninsula to allow the residents to decide whether they would stay as citizens of Cameroun or remain as Nigerian citizens.
The Speaker, Aminu Waziri Tambuwal, had during the session Thursday ruled that the contentious area would remain Nigerian territory as long as Nigeria's National Assembly was yet to ratify the 'international' agreement that ceded Bakassi to Cameroun.
The collated results of the People's Public Sessions on the review of the 1999 Constitution conducted by the House across 360 federal constituencies of the country were to be presented Thursday.
But Tambuwal, who rose from a marathon meeting of principal officers that lasted over three hours, suddenly appeared at conference hall 231 venue of the presentation and announced the cancellation of the event.
He based the cancellation on the need to put certain things right by doing more consultations on the issue.
Tambuwal said his leadership reviewed the planned presentation and decided that it be cancelled because there "were hitches here and there."
The event, which was scheduled for 10.00 a.m., was delayed until 12.25 p.m. when the Speaker entered the venue accompanied by his deputy and other principal officers and went straight to announce the postponement shortly after the national anthem.
Members and other stakeholders who had waited for hours heaved a sigh of relief when Tambuwal said: "I will begin by apologising to you collectively and severally for the delay in the commencement of the process. I would like to say that as leaders, we will continue to engage ourselves and in the process of doing that ensure that what ought to be done or needs to be done is done very well, especially here in the House of Representatives where this process has been acclaimed to be transparent thus far."
He continued: "We will as such want a situation whereby at this stage there should be no issue that has to do with the total collated results of what need to be presented to the public today.
"As leadership, we have reviewed the process so far and realised that we cannot go ahead with this programme today. Just like any other things associated with humans, there are hitches here and there- that is normal."
The Speaker was said to have disagreed with the leadership of the Constitution Review Committee at the meeting particularly on the alleged failure of the committee to carry its members along in arriving at the final report.
Tambuwal, according to sources at the meeting, was very uncomfortable with the fact that stakeholders like the Nigerian Union of Journalists (NUJ) and the Civil Society Organisations which had been working with the committee on the issue were equally not allowed to have access to the final report.
"The Speaker made the point that should the committee go ahead to present the document, the House could suffer more serious embarrassment because of the credibility problems that the constitution review exercise could generate," a lawmaker said.
The Spokesman of the House, Zakari Mohammed, at a press briefing, admitted that Tambuwal had to cancel the public presentation because most lawmakers had complained that they were yet to scrutinise the final document.
He said: "But because of the short time we have and the fact that a number of our colleagues have not been able to go through the reports from their various states we had to postpone the presentation today.
"I want to appeal to all Nigerians that came from different parts of the country to bear with us. We will soon pick another date."
Some members of the Emeka Ihedioha-led committee said that they were not allowed to have access to the report.
Besides, the National Association of Nigerian Students (NANS), Alliance for Credible Elections (ACE) and other civil society groups yesterday protested against alleged doctoring of the committee's report.
The National President of NANS, Yinka Gbadebo, Deputy President of ACE, Asuzu Echezona and a representative of Persons with Disability Initiative Society of Nigeria, Augustine Onwuamaegbu, at separate interviews with reporters alleged that "the report was doctored in an attempt to truncate our democracy and subvert the will of the people of Nigeria."
While reacting to the cancellation of the collation, Gbadebo said: "This is another attempt by the House to subvert the wishes and aspirations of the people expressly captured in the 360 constituencies of this country at the peoples' public session just to satisfy the interest of certain segments of the society.''
He stated that all issues relating to local government autonomy and autonomy of state Houses of Assembly which were canvassed at the people's public session and opposed by the Nigeria Governors Forum (NGF) were non- negotiable issues.
According to him any attempt to subvert the people's decision on those issues would be resisted by the students.
On his own part, Augustine Onwuamaegbu representing Association of People with Disability Initiative Society of Nigeria, said: '' The Nigerian people have a lot of confidence in both houses of the National Assembly. For them to cancel the collation of the constitution review exercise shows that the House has an agenda on this issue.''
Relying on Sections 12, 8, 1(4) and 4 of the 1999 Constitution, the Speaker insisted that despite the International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruling in favour of Cameroun and the United Nations' intervention that led to the ceding of the land to the Central African country, the National Assembly was not carried along on the matter, therefore the ceding was "physical, but illegal."
The House adopted the motion after the controversial matter was brought to the floor by Ekpenyong Ayi who faulted the ceding of the Bakassi Peninsula to Cameroun by the International Court of Justice in 2002.
Besides faulting the ICJ judgment that did not seek the endorsement of the National Assembly, the parliament also flayed the United Nations Green Tree Agreement that later sealed the deal in favour of Cameroun.
Leading the debate on the motion, Ayi had urged the Federal Government to "appreciate the right of the people to self-determination by virtue of which they determine their political status and freely pursue their political status as well as freely pursue their economic, social and cultural development.
"Bakassi people deserve to be given a platform to exercise their right to self-determination which is an inalienable right provided in Article 1 of the 1966 International Convention on Civil and Political Rights."
He drew the attention of the chamber to the fact that "several referenda were held across the globe at different times for the purposes of protecting the fundamental human rights of the citizens involved."
For example, a referendum was held from January 9 to 15, 2011 in Southern Sudan where, according to him, the Republic of Southern Sudan opted out of the then Sudan, adding that "in Egypt a referendum was also held on 19 March, 2012 and same in Switzerland in June 2012 among others."
The lawmaker also cited "Article (15) 2 of the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights adopted in 1948 states that: No one shall arbitrarily be deprived of nationality or denied the right to change his nationality."
He added that "this guarantees the Nigerian nationals living in Bakassi Peninsula the exercise of their fundamental rights and freedoms as enshrined in the International Human Rights Law and other relevant provisions of the international law."
He regretted the "incessant and blatant violations, frequent extra-judicial killings and incarceration by the Camerounian authorities."
Contributing to the debate, Minority Leader of the House, Femi Gbajabiamila dismissed the ICJ judgment and Green Tree Agreement as not binding on Nigeria.
According to him, "the issue of Bakassi will not go away until the right thing is done. The balkanisation of Bakassi violates Section 8(4) of the Constitution on boundary adjustments."
He added that "as long as Bakassi is still in the constitution, we can go ahead and hold a referendum there."
The Guardian