Constitution review: Senate, Reps vote for joint exercise

The Senate and the House of Representatives have resolved to continue the review of the 1999 Constitution on the basis of a joint committee, dumping their earlier decision to do the exercise separately.

The decision followed a meeting between the leadership of both houses on Sunday after two weeks of confrontation over the designation for members of the House of Representatives in the Joint Committee on Constitution Review.

Spokesman for the Senate, Senator Ayogu Eze, told journalists on Wednesday that a meeting of the President of the Senate, David Mark, and his deputy, Ike Ekweremadu as well as the Speaker, Dimeji Bankole and Usman Nafada, held on Sunday.

He said the meeting was geared towards restoring confidence in the exercise and to bring back house members who had dissociated themselves from the exercise.

He said, “One thing I want to report is that both leaderships resolved that they were not going to pursue separate Constitution amendment; they are going to come together as a body to pursue a joint constitution review.

“We will dialogue among ourselves and create a platform that will engender confidence and ensure that the kind of thing that happened in Minna does not happen again, not just in the Constitution amendment, but in the relationship between the two chambers of the National Assembly.”

Eze also noted that the issue of the nomenclature of the leadership of the committee, which was the bone of contention, would be resolved subsequently in the course of further dialogue.

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