President of the Senate Ahmad Lawan announced that the Senate will investigate the 19 constitutional amendment bills rejected by President Major General Muhammadu Buhari (retired). Lawan made the statement during a plenary session on Tuesday.
In January, the National Assembly transmitted 35 constitutional amendment bills to the President for assent. Buhari signed 16 of the 35 bills last Friday. Lawan highlighted that the most notable of the approved bills was the Fifth Alteration Bill No. 6, which provides for the financial independence of state Houses of Assembly and the judiciary.
The first of the 19 rejected bills was the Fifth Alteration Bill No. 24, which sought to amend the Second Schedule of the 1999 Constitution to empower the National Assembly and state Houses of Assembly to summon the President and governors for questioning on matters within their legislative powers. Other rejected bills included:
– Alteration Bill No. 7, which aimed to amend the constitution to compel obedience to legislative summons;
– Fifth Alteration Bill No. 29, which proposed an act to require a state of the nation address by the President and a state‑of‑the‑state address by governors;
– Fifth Alteration Bill No. 22, which sought to specify the period within which the President or a state governor must present the Appropriation Bill before the National Assembly or House of Assembly;
– Bill No. 30, which intended to include former heads of the National Assembly in the Council of State; and
– Bill No. 14, which proposed moving fingerprints, identification and criminal records from the Exclusive Legislative List to the Concurrent Legislative List.
Lawan said, “We sent 35 constitutional amendment bills. Sixteen of them were approved while 19 were rejected. We will find out why those bills were rejected because we put a lot of resources into the process. We will continue to engage the executive and review the bills to see if there are issues we can resolve quickly; we will continue to pursue them. If the issues are cumbersome, we can leave them for the 10th Assembly.”
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