Restructuring A Slogan, We Need Details – Senate

 

Senate spokesperson, Dr Ajibola Basiru, has urged proponents of restructuring not to pass the buck to the Senate or engage in blame game directed at the National Assembly.

Senator Ajibola Basiru explained that the National Assembly could not initiate the process of restructuring the country because the concept meant different things to the various ethnic nationalities in Nigeria.

He called on proponents of restructuring to explain it to their senators.

The Chairman, Senate Committee on Media and Public Affairs, Basiru, who is also a member of the Constitution Review panel, gave the clarification while responding to an enquiry on the matter in an interview with one of our correspondents in Abuja on Thursday.

Basiru, however, expressed the fears that the type of restructuring that some people were advocating might not be part of the amendment if they had not submitted any memorandum to the panel before the deadline for the submission elapsed last year.

He said, “We expect anybody who has a memorandum regarding restructuring which they want to be included in the constitution amendments that the Senate is doing, to have submitted it through his representative in the National Assembly by now.

“The Constitution Review Committee has started work already. The idea of restructuring is a slogan. We expect anybody who is advocating it to have come up with specific details of what he wants before the committee.

“As far as we are concerned, restructuring means different things to many people. The type of restructuring being canvassed by Afenifere may not be the same thing that the Ndigbo or the Arewa people are canvassing.

“The National Assembly is made of people’s representatives. We need our people to tell us what they need by engaging us in dialogue or through memoranda. We cannot impose any concept on the country.

“We can only move based on what is presented before us as the aggregate opinion of the people.

Rather than mere sloganeering, Dr Basiru urged proponents to engage the National Assembly through their representatives with detailed proposals on the contents of their notion of restructuring to do their homework by submitting their input through their representatives.

“We have the power to amend the constitution. We have called for memorandum which had elapsed, so, anyone who had not submitted memoranda before the deadline elapsed, there is nothing we can do again.

“However, if they had submitted memoranda already, their position would be considered when the activities on the constitution amendments fully begin.

“Meanwhile, they have to hold regular consultative meetings with their representatives on the matter to ensure its acceptability by all sections of the country,” Basiru added.