Constitution Review: Group advocates restructuring, power devolution

 A nonpartisan organisation, To Build A Nation (TBAN) has advocated restructuring of the country to enable the constitution recognise two tiers of government- federal and regional governments.

The Executive Director, TBAN, Mr Jide Akintunde, made the call on Wednesday in a memorandum submitted to the 1999 Constitution Review Committee in Enugu.

According to him, the clauses on the federal structure and devolution of powers should allow the federating units to operate without influence from the Federal Government.

He said that exclusive list has 68 items, while the concurrent list has 12 items, which made the Federal Government to have undue influence and control over the current federating states.

“We want to recommend that matters such as agriculture, labour, mining, copyright, stamp duties, taxation, security and conservation be moved to the concurrent list to delimit the centrality of the Federal Government,” Akintunde said.

Akintunde said that there could not be a single unitary constitution when the Federal Government and the federating units were separate tiers of government.

“We equally recommend separate constitutions established for the separate tiers of government.

“The federating units should be conferred with constitutional powers to run an independent judicial system through a reformed subnational judicial service commission.

“Also, the establishment of subnational police to strengthen the security architecture of the country,” he said.

The director stressed the need to reform the electoral system in the country by strengthen Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to deliver transparent, credible, free and fair elections.

“There is a need to immediately ensure the fundamental reform of the legal framework governing the electoral process in order to safeguard our democracy and to strengthen democratic institutions,” he said.

NAN reports that TBAN is a nonpartisan citizens’ movement advocating political reform and providing civic education to Nigerians.

The two-day public hearing on Review of the 1999 Constitution are currently going on across the six geo-political zones in the country, while Enugu, Anambra and Ebonyi are  holding theirs in Enugu.