Constitution Review: Senate suspends plenary for one week

The Senate has suspended plenary sessions for one week to allow its members participate in the public hearings on the Review of the 1999 Constitution.

The Senate President, Ahmed Lawan, announced this during Wednesday’s plenary.

“We shall be devoting the entire week to the constitution review exercise,” he said.

He said the public hearings would be conducted in 12 centres across the country on May 26 and 27.

The Committee is headed by the Deputy Senate President, Ovie Omo-Agege (APC, Delta).

Mr Lawan appealed to Nigerians to take advantage of the exercise, adding that the National Assembly had no pre-conceived agenda.

He said the legislature was open to suggestions from them on how to move the country forward.

Mr Omo-Agege recently announced that the upper legislative chamber would hold the public hearings simultaneously across 12 state capitals with two of the exercises in each geo-political zone.

He said Jos and Minna would host the public hearings in the North-central geo-political zone while Bauchi and Gombe would host those of the North-east zone.

He also said the public hearings in the North-west zone would hold in Kaduna and Sokoto while those of the South-west would hold in Akure and Lagos.

The deputy senate president said while Owerri and Enugu would host the public hearings in the South-east zone, Asaba and Port Harcourt would be the venues for the exercise in the South-south zone.

He also said the national public hearing would be held in Abuja, the nation’s capital.

The 1999 Constitution was drafted by the military administration of Abdulsalami Abubakar, who handed over power to the democratically-elected government of Olusegun Obasanjo, a retired army general.

The document came into effect in May 1999 when the Obasanjo administration assumed office.

The National Assembly began the process of amending the Constitution in 2000 when the late Chuba Okadigbo was the senate president.