The Senate has foreclosed the demand and agitation for a brand new Constitution for the country.
The Deputy President of the Senate and Chairman of the Senate Committee on Constitution Review, Senator Ovie Omo-Agege, made the position of the Senate known on Thursday during the national public hearing on the review of the 1999 Constitution.
Omo-Agege said section 9 of the Constitution, as amended, had already foreclosed a new constitution.
He said: “Now, some of our compatriots have urged that rather than amending the Constitution, we should make a new Constitution all together.
We respect this opinion and we believe it is a most desirable proposition.
However, we are conducting this exercise in accordance with the extant legal order, which is the 1999 Constitution.
Specifically, Section 9 of the Constitution empowers the National Assembly to alter the provisions of the Constitution and prescribes the manner in which it is to be done.
Unfortunately, it does not make similar provision or provide mechanism for replacing or re-writing an entirely new Constitution.
To embark on any process without prior alteration of Section 9 of the Constitution to provide the mode through which an entirely new Constitution could be made, would amount to gross violation of our oath of allegiance to the Constitution”.
“In other words, it will take a new Constitutional amendment to be able to give Nigerians a most desired new Constitution.
It would be unconstitutional to do otherwise.”
