The House of Representatives did not adopt immunity for federal and state executives, state police and single tenure for the President and governors because they did not tally with the wishes of Nigerians. The Chairman of the House Ad-hoc Committee on the Review of the 1999 Constitution, Hon. Emeka Ihedioha, explained this yesterday at a meeting in Abuja with civil society organisations.
He said: "The submission of the committee on those and every other issue on the constitution review is a clear reflection of the views and position of the broad generality of Nigerians as reflected and documented in the results of the people's public sessions conducted by the House of Representatives in November last year." Ihedioha added that the process used in writing the report of the committee, was "all-inclusive, thorough and painstaking".
He said: "As has been clarified on many occasions, the work of the committee was designed in such a manner that it relied on the input of Nigerians to arrive at its decisions. And the civil society organisations have continued to play major roles in all the stages of the process so far.
"The House Ad-Hoc Com-mittee on Constitution Review conducted a painstaking consultative process with major stakeholders as jointorganisers. These stakeholders include the NLC, TUC, NUJ, NUT, CSO's, NULGE, NCWS, Youth and students' organisations, NBA, etc. "The results (of the people's public sessions) were collated publicly with all the stakeholders present.
The results have been presented and published for people to dispute and correct. In the absence of any convincing reason to the contrary, we stand by these results.
"Standing by the results as collated means that the committee reflected the decisions of Nigerians during those sessions. "The recommendations of the committee are not the personal views of members of the committee or the leadership of the House.
They are the collective views of Nigerians." On the proposal to abrogate the State/Local Government Joint Account, Ihedioha said "295 federal constituencies voted in favour whereas 62 federal constituencies voted for its retention and three constituencies absented". He said: "Celebrated pundits and constitutional lawyers have repeatedly canvassed that local governments should squarely be a state responsibility.
"Should the constitution be amended so that the process to create local government areas now rest exclusively with the states, such that states assume responsibility for the funding of local governments, the people voted overwhelmingly to reject this proposal by 276 federal constituencies to 78 with six abstentions.
"Should the local government areas be accorded the status of a third tier of government properly so called with its own legislative list? 291 federal constituencies answered 'yes' in support and 66 federal constituencies returned a 'no' answer with three abstentions."
National Mirror