House of Reps vote to remove immunity clause for President and Governors, but what does it mean?

by Kolapo Olapoju

Members of the House of Representatives have endorsed new amendments to the 1999 Constitution, one of which was the removal of the immunity clause for the President, the Vice President, the governors and their deputies. By implication, occupiers of the offices can be tried for criminal offences while still in office.

A total of 252 lawmakers voted in Abuja on Wednesday, 15 October, to adopt 70 new clauses, which were compressed into a constitution amendment bill already harmonised by a conference committee of the Senate and the House.

The Deputy Speaker of the House and the Chairman of the House Committee on Constitution Review, Mr. Emeka Ihedioha had moved the motion for the adoption of the report by the recently concluded national conference.

Apart from the removal of immunity against criminal prosecution for the President and state governors, the house members also endorsed to grant financial autonomy to local government councils in the country.

Under the new amendments, the President and governors can be prosecuted for criminal offences while still in office and stand removed from office once found guilty, while Local government councils will have full autonomy and are no longer appendages of state governments.

Section 7(1)(c) of the new provision states, “The House of Assembly of every state, shall, subject to Section 8 of this constitution, ensure that existence of democratically elected local government councils under a law, which provides for their funding from the public revenue of the state and the autonomy of the local government councils.”

The new provisions have also created separate offices for the Minister of Justice and the Attorney-General of the Federation, with each office having clearly-defined roles.

The session which was presided over by speaker, Aminu Tambuwal, had 261 members present in the chambers when voting started, and while 252 voted to adopt the conference report, eight voted against, while one member abstained from voting.

After the voting closed and the results declared, Tambuwal stated that the House had met the constitutional requirement of two-thirds majority of members to amend the constitution.

Tambuwal said, “We have met the constitutional requirement of two-thirds for the adoption and passage of this important bill. Let us talk to our colleagues at the state assemblies for the adoption of this report.”

Under Section 9 of the constitution, a constitution amendment bill succeeds after it receives the support of 240 (two-thirds) members out of the total of 360.

The Senate is expected to vote next, after which the document will be forwarded to the 36 state Houses of Assembly for approval by two-thirds of the Houses and subsequently returned to the National Assembly for final approval.

The amendment procedure of the current Constitution states that; “An Act of the National Assembly for the alteration of this Constitution, not being an Act to which section 8 of this Constitution applies, shall not be passed in either House of the National Assembly unless the proposal is supported by the votes of not less than two-thirds majority of all the members of that House which is literally 240 of the 360 members of the Senate and approved by resolution of the Houses of Assembly of not less than two-thirds of all the States.”

The procedure for constitution amendment states further that “An Act of the National Assembly for the purpose of altering the provisions of this section, section 8 or Chapter IV of this Constitution shall not be passed by either House of the National Assembly unless the proposal is approved by the votes of not less than four-fifths majority of all the members of each House, and also approved by resolution of the House of Assembly of not less than two-third of all States.”

The issue of immunity or otherwise of political office holders has been a major discourse over the years, specifically since 1999, when Nigeria returned to democratic rule.

In 2012, the Justice Alfa Belgore committee set up by President Goodluck Jonathan recommended for the removal of the immunity clause, but state governors kicked against it, and held a meeting in Abuja to stop the removal of the clause from the constitution.

The governors had stated that if recommendation for the removal of the clause was allowed to scale through, it would distract them from carrying out their leadership duties.

However, in April of 2014, the issue was reawaken during the CONFAB, where the ‘National Conference Standing Committee on Politics and Governance’ unanimously resolved to expunge section 308 of the 1999 constitution which deals with immunity clause.

Comments (13)

  1. No escape route for all of dem again

  2. So what does it truly mean?

  3. They will be the first to break the law.

  4. Nice one. this one is to check them

  5. Good riddance to bad rubbish

  6. Lets hope it works.

  7. Good move.

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