NASS, Expedite Work on Constitutional, Electoral Reforms -By Jide Ojo

I heartily welcome distinguished senators and honourable members of the House of Representatives back from their two months’ annual recess. I do hope they enjoyed their vacation and are refreshed to give their best.

I want to plead with the President of the Nigerian Senate, Godswill Akpabio and the entire Senate to forgive Senator Natasha Akpoti-Uduaghan and allow her to resume her legislative duties after serving out her six-month suspension. The alibi of not wanting her to resume because her court case is at the Court of Appeal does not hold water. Many court cases are challenging President Bola Tinubu on his imposition of a state of emergency and suspension of the governor, deputy governor and legislature in Rivers State for six months, yet last Wednesday, the President issued a statement reinstating those who were suspended to their duty posts. This is despite the plethora of cases which the President put at about 40 in the courts.

That aside, I expect our federal lawmakers to take their constitutional role of lawmaking, oversight and representation seriously. I am concerned about the vacillation on the constitutional cum electoral reform exercise of the 10th National Assembly. This is the end of September, and the President is expected to present the budget anytime soon. This will get prime attention once presented.

Since last year, NASS has been having retreats and public hearings on constitutional alterations and just yesterday, another one was held by the House of Representatives in Abuja. This is a sheer waste of time and resources. The lawmakers and indeed Nigerians know the urgent issues in need of reform, and time is running out to get this work done. By now, the two chambers of the National Assembly should have voted on issues that are urgent and important, such as state police, reserved seats for women, political party reforms, independent candidacy, diaspora voting, as well as out-of-country voting. Others include fiscal federalism and resource control, tax reforms, and wider devolution of power.

Early this month, President Tinubu said, “I am reviewing all the aspects of security; I have to create state police. We are looking at that holistically.” He said that when he hosted a delegation of prominent Katsina indigenes led by Governor Dikko Radda at the Aso Rock Presidential Villa. This is the biggest endorsement for this exercise thus far. I have advocated several times on this page for the creation of state police. Vigilante groups, such as Amotekun and Ebube Agu, cannot do much as they are constrained by the inability to get the federal authority’s approval to get sophisticated weapons. Meanwhile, Section 14(2)(b) of the Nigerian Constitution says security and welfare of citizens shall be the primary purpose of government.

I have argued that since the Constitution has legalised the establishment of state judiciary and correctional centres (prisons), nothing should stop the establishment of the state policing system to complete the tripod of the justice sector. This newspaper wrote a fantastic editorial on this issue on September 17, 2025, when it said inter alia, “Effective leadership in a federal country requires the presence of state police. On a deeper reflection, the United Kingdom, a unitary polity, has 45 territorial police forces and three specialised police forces. Forty-three regional forces serve England and Wales, along with Police Scotland and the Police Service of Northern Ireland.”

It went further to say, “The SPFs comprise the British Transport Police, which covers the rail network across the UK; the Civil Nuclear Constabulary, which covers non-military nuclear installations; and the Ministry of Defence Police, which covers Ministry of Defence property and personnel, including nuclear weapons and nuclear materials in the UK. The United States operates about 18,000 police agencies across the central, state, county, and city levels. Of the 26 federal countries worldwide, all have state police except Nigeria.” This issue of state police has been discussed for too long, and it is time for action!

Resource control is another lingering issue that predates this administration. It is part of the wider issue of economic restructuring. President Tinubu has always advocated for restructuring and devolution of power, and the time is ripe to walk the talk. It’s imperative to also use this opportunity to discuss political party reforms and independent candidacy. We did have an independent candidacy in the aborted First Republic. Nigeria also used to have regional political parties alongside federal parties. However, all that changed after the January 15, 1966 coup. This issue must be revisited. Shockingly, 171 political associations wanted the Independent National Electoral Commission to register them as political parties. Recall that as of February 2019, Nigeria had 92 political parties, with many of them not adding any value to the electioneering process. INEC subsequently deregistered about 75 of them.

My take is that just like in India and the USA, political parties should be allowed to operate at national and subnational levels. The Constitution should empower State Independent Electoral Commissions to register political associations that want to vie for elections, either at state or local government levels, while INEC should be given stringent conditions to register political parties that want to operate pan-Nigeria. It makes no sense to allow for few political entrepreneurs to register political parties for the sole purpose of operating as business entities during the electioneering period.

Sincerely speaking, many of those seeking to register political associations now, ahead of 2027, just want to cash out, knowing full well that there will be an implosion in the dominant political parties, and they will be there to offer disgruntled politicians a platform to contest elections at a mutually agreed fee. Aside from all these, there is further need to tighten the nuts and bolts of our laws to prevent defections and cross-carpeting of elected political office holders without first giving up their position to the political parties that sponsor their elections. After all, the Supreme Court had said in many decided cases that votes cast at elections were owned by the political parties and not the candidates. That was the basis on which Rotimi Ameachi became governor of Rivers State and Yahaya Bello became the governor of Kogi State.

The National Assembly should try and do all within its powers to ensure the conclusion of all pending constitutional and electoral reforms before December 2025. This is because aside from the fact that the Senate and House of Representatives will have to separately vote on all reform issues that have been distilled from the memoranda and public hearings, they will still have to pass the issues that get two-third majority endorsement to states houses of assembly for concurrence after which items that are passed by at least 24 of the 36 SHA will have to be finally tallied and sent to the president for assent. The advantage of early conclusion of these reform exercises is that the electoral alterations will be taken on by INEC in its planning and budgeting for the 2027 general elections. Issues like state police, if approved, will also need a budget to implement. This is the budget season and a stitch in time, saves nine!

X:@jideojong