Adegboruwa highlights missing areas in constitutional amendments

The recent accent to sixteen Bills transmitted to President Muhammadu Buhari by the National Assembly has been described by a legal expert, Ebun-Olu Adegboruwa, as worthy of commendation.

Adegboruwa in a statement on Friday titled ‘The Tokenism of Devolution’ however, said the recent constitutional amendment fell short of Nigerians’ expectations.

The President last week signed some Bills into law and rejected nineteen others, especially the ones that empowers the National and State Assemblies to summon the president, governors and others.

Senate President, Ahmad Lawan, had however said the National Assembly would deepen effort to find out the reason behind the President’s rejection.

Adegboruwa in his statement lamented the centralization of education by the Constitution, stressing it was a factor responsible for exodus of Nigerian youth oversees.

The legal expert also slammed the opposition of the state governors to the autonomy of local governments, a development he described as retrogressive.

Adegboruwa, therefore, appealed to the state governments to reconsider their position in order to allow local governments discharge their duties effectively.

He said: “The centralization of education by the Constitution has no place in a federation, whereby the federal government will determine the mode of admission of students into a university established and funded by a State. There can be no basis under our present circumstance, for sustaining the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board, which destroys merit as the basis of seeking and acquiring knowledge, by cooking up figures for admission into tertiary institutions in the name of cut off marks. This is one of the frustrating factors for our youths, who are daily exiting Nigeria to other climes for greener pastures.

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“Then of course is the issue of resource control. The ninth Assembly should not have missed the opportunity to make a statement for the existence of true federalism, unity and equity. People should be allowed to take their destiny into their hands and to determine what to do with the resources that God has endowed them with.

“It is difficult to imagine that governors of the states still oppose autonomy for the local governments, which are the agents of development closest to the people. Money cannot be the root of this retrogression, given the monumental losses that our people have been subjected to over the years.

“Yes, it has been touted in the past that the issue of joint account between the states and local governments has been the bane of development and autonomy for the latter. Presently, the local governments only exist on paper, as no activity of any meaningful description is going on in those locations.

“The duties assigned to the local governments under the Constitution, such as the control of markets, cemeteries, billboards, radio and television licences, environmental sanitation, waste disposal, road construction, etc have all been taken over by the states. This has in turn crippled the local governments such that most of them cannot pay the salaries of their workers.

“I appeal to the governments to please review their position on the issue of local government autonomy in order to place this third tier of government in the best position to discharge their responsibilities under the Constitution.

“In all, what we have in the name of constitutional amendment falls short of our expectations and indeed the promises made by the ruling party in its own manifesto. There is still time to do the needful, before handing over.”

By Ambali Abdulkabeer

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