BY Emman Ovuakporie
ABUJA—House of Representatives has reiterated its position on grassroots participation in the ongoing review of the 1999 Constitution, explaining that its planned peoples' public sessions was to ensure that no section of the Nigerian citizenry, irrespective of class, place of abode and/or affiliation, was denied a chance to make input.
Chairman of the ad-hoc committee on the Review of the Constitution and Deputy Speaker of the House of Representatives, Mr. Emeka Ihedioha, stated this yesterday, during an interview with journalists at the 127th assembly of the Inter-Parliamentary Union, IPU, taking place at Quebec, Canada.
He assured that the peoples' public sessions, which will ensure all 360 members of the House convene all-inclusive consultative meetings in their constituencies, had been designed to ensure that the voices of the grassroots were reflected in the amendments that will be eventually made in the constitution.
He said: "Constitution amendment is not a process that should be left alone in the hands of the political class or vocal elite that exerts some control over advocacy machinery.
"That is why the House of Representatives has designed these innovative peoples' public sessions to provide opportunities for all strata of Nigerians to make input into the kind of constitution they want.
"For the first time, we are directly taking the constitution amendment to the doorsteps of the Nigerian people, going beyond the usual zonal hearings that gets hijacked by a self-same elite endowed with the means to manipulate public opinion.
"The sessions will be no-holds barred, non-partisan and broad-based as the National Assembly will not impose a ceiling on the range of amendments sought by Nigerians."
Ihedioha spoke at the IPU conference tagged Citizenship, Identity and Linguistic and Cultural Diversity in a Globalised World.
He said it re-echoes fundamental challenges Nigeria has faced with respect to issues like the indigene/settler controversy, state creation and structure of government, which he said can be resolved holistically through a constitution amendment process as is being championed by the National Assembly.
Vanguard Nigeria