Public officeholders who hide behind the immunity clause to steal will soon be licking their wounds, as the House of Representatives is set to withdraw the contentious clause from the constitution.
This is one of the recommendations contained in the report of the House of Representatives ad-hoc Committee on Review of the 1999 Constitution which is scheduled to be laid on the floor of the House today.
Among other things, we gathered from a member of the committee who craved anonymity since the report has not been debated by the House, that the report also recommended, despite variance with the Senate, that two terms be maintained, with a four-year span for political officeholders including the president and his deputy.
On local government, the special committee headed by the deputy speaker of the House, Hon. Emeka Ihedioha, asked that a definite uniform tenure be provided for all local government officeholders in line with the request of the Nigerian public.
The committee had, last November, nationwide people’s public sessions held in all constituencies to collect input of the public on constitution amendment, the results of which were announced in a public presentation at the National Assembly earlier this year.
Key elements in the template used for the opinion gathering exercise include the granting of full autonomy, including financial autonomy, to local government administrations and removal of immunity against prosecution from the president, vice president, governors and their deputies, , particularly as ıt relates to criminal offences.
Others include rotation of the office of the president, scrapping of state independent electoral commissions (SIECs), state creation, state police as well as autonomy to state legislatures. [Leadership]
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