‘Collation, Greatest Challenge Of Constitution Review’

Chairman, House of Representatives Committee on Diaspora Affairs, Hon. Abike Dabiri-Erewa, has expressed fear that collation of the peoples’ views would be the greatest challenge of the ongoing constitution review.

Hon. Dabiri-Erewa, who represents Ikorodu Federal Constituency in Lagos on the platform of ACN, said this in Abuja while reviewing the nationwide public sessions last the review of the 1999 Constitution in all the 360 federal constituencies in the country.

The lawmaker said that the major challenge the exercise might have was to reflect the true wishes of the people as captured during the nationwide public session on Saturday.

“Well, the only major challenge of this exercise is to reflect the true wishes of the people during our collation.

“The participation of the people, especially in my constituency was of high standard and turnout was impressive,’’ she said.

She said that since the independence of the country in 1960, “this is the first time it is happening. This is the first time we are getting people involved in the constitutional matters.’’

She said that in her constituency, every stakeholder was represented and people were happy and enthusiastic about the exercise.

“In my constituency, every stakeholder is represented. This is called participatory democracy. We only listened to them as they make their input, ours is to collate their views.’’

Hon. Dabiri-Erewa said that those who criticised the exercise initially “will by now appreciate what we are doing. I am very happy in Ikorodu with the way people make their opinions and voices heard freely. People are fully evolved.’’

She said that out of the 43 items slated for review, the issues of state creation, state police, local government autonomy, rotation of power, tenure, and immunity clause, among others generated heated debates during the constitution hearing.