The Speaker of the House of Representatives, Yakubu Dogara, and Defence Headquarters, have differed on the input of the National Assembly in the confirmation of the appointment of service chiefs by the President.
While Dogara said confirmation was necessary, the Defence Headquarters thought otherwise and advocated the deletion of entire Section 18 of the Armed Forces Act, Vanguard reports.
The opposing views featured at a public hearing organised by the House Committee on Defence on six different bills on defence related matters.
Dogara said it was dangerous to continue retaining Section 315(2) of the 1999 Constitution.
He said the House of Representatives was considering altering that provision in the ongoing constitution amendment.
One of the six bills included an Act to amend the Armed Forces Act, Cap.A20, Laws of the Federation, 2004 to make the appointment of service chiefs subject to confirmation by the National Assembly.
But, Chief of Defence Staff, CDS General Gabriel Olonisakin, represented by AVM Ibrahim Shafi, said the position of Defence Headquarters was that Section 18 of the Armed Forces Act should be deleted since it had been covered by Section 218 of the Constitution, saying it was in conflict with the provision of the constitution.
He said, “Our position is that the entire section 18 of the Armed Forces should be deleted. It is in direct collision course, in conflict with Section 218 of the Constitution. The Armed Forces Act did not provide for the CDS. There is a lacuna which should be amended.”
Also speaking, representative of Chief of Naval Staff and Director, Legal Services, Patrick Nimyel, called for the rotation of the position of the Director-General of the Defence Industries Corporation of Nigeria (DICON), and the position of Chief of Defence Staff among the services.
“The issue of the Chief of Defence Statff should also be rotational between the Service. The appointment should also be tenured. It will help the issue of confirmation,” he said.
Omoleye Omoruyi… an apprentice web/game developer, novelist, sensitive to happenings in the world. Meet him @Lord_rickie on Twitter/Instagram
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