Nigeria Content Online

The Deputy Senate President, Ike
Ekweremadu’s decision to remove section 121 of the amended constitution
from the list of sections that were passed by the states was the cause
of discord in the senate yesterday, as senators roundly criticized him.

Section 121 was meant to put state
legislatures on first line charge of the states’ revenue and grant them
financial independence from the executive.

Although Mr. Ekeweremadu earlier
announced that the section was successfully amended after it supposedly
got the required 24 state votes, he later withdrew his comments by
saying a cross check of the resolutions revealed that Katsina, one of
the states believed to have voted for the clause, had two conflicting
versions and was therefore dropped.

Also, Kwara State which voted for the independence of the state judiciary was later found not to have voted for their autonomy.

“So as it stands now, section 121 was
not amended,” Mr. Ekweremadu told journalists late Wednesday. “We did
not want to go through any controversy so we decided to reject that of
Katsina for that reason. That leaves us with 22 states.”

The Katsina State House of Assembly had
allegedly sent two conflicting resolutions to the national assembly:
one dated June 30, where the section was passed and another one July 7,
where it said the section was not passed.

“I think you should reverse your
steps,” Lee Maeba (Rivers State) told the Deputy Senate president who
was presiding over the session. “You would have contacted the Committee
on Constitutional Review and discussed it or contact the Katsina House
of Assembly to know its position.”

George Sekibo (PDP Rivers State) also
argued that it was out of place for an issue to be altered when the
Senate had already taken its decision.

“It would be ideal for us to contact the Katsina state House of Assembly to know their resolution,” he said.

Subsequently, a majority of the senators clamoured for an overrule of the decision.

Although the deputy senate president
tried to offer an explanation for his action, the angry senators
shouted him down, leading to a call for a closed door session for the
day.

After the session, however, the Senate’s spokesperson, confirmed
that both the Katsina and Kwara legislatures did not pass Section 121,
adding that the argument erupted on the floor of the Senate because
senators were not intimated by the leadership of the Senate before
taking the decision.