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The Senate has accused the 36 state governors of being behind the non-passage of the 44 Constitution Review Bills transmitted to them by the National Assembly.
The Deputy Senate President and Chairman, Senate Ad hoc Committee on Constitution Review, Senator Ovie Omo-Agege, disclosed that the Conference of Nigerian Speakers had vowed not to pass the bills until the four bills proposed by the state assemblies were passed.
Omo-Agege made this known at a press conference in Abuja on Tuesday that the state Houses of Assembly had listed state police as part of the four bills holding them to ransom.
The press conference was organised by the National Assembly Joint Committee on Constitution Review. However, the Chairman, House of Representatives Ad hoc Committee on Constitution Review, Ahmed Wase, was absent at the briefing.
Omo-Agege, however, said that he had the blessings of Ahmed Wase, a member of the House of Representatives, who is out of the country on a national assignment, to go ahead with the conference.
He lamented that only 11 states had so far considered and performed their constitutional role of passing amendments to the constitution.
He said the Speakers of State Houses of Assembly, through a letter to the National Assembly Joint Committee on Constitution Review, had given four conditions upon which the remaining 25 states would pass the amendments.
Omo-Agege described the action by the state assemblies as the “hands of Esau and voice of Jacob”, saying state governors are behind the action of the Speakers.
Present at the briefing were the Senate Leader, Senator Abdullahi Gobir; Chief Whip of the Senate, Senator Orji Kalu; Deputy Chief Whip of the Senate, Aliyu Abdullahi; and Minority Whip, Senator Chukwuka Utazi.
The President of the Nigeria Labour Congress, Ayuba Wabba, and the National President of the National Union of Local Government Employees, Comrade Ambali Olatunji, also attended the briefing.