PROTEST: TINUBU DOESN’T HAVE THE POWER TO DUMP THE CONSTITUTION- APC 27-07-24
By Sadiq Aminu The All Progressives Congress APC, says the agitation by the organizers of the national protest for President Bola Tinubu to scrap the 1999 Constitution, is a tall order.
The National Secretary, Senator Ajibola Basiru, stated this after a closed-door meeting with the Forum of APC State Chairmen in response to the 15 demands of the organisers of the protest at the national secretariat in Abuja.
Senator Ajibola observed that the renewed agitation to have the President dump the constitution he vowed to protect would amount to a mission impossible.
According to him, most of the issues raised by the organizers are not matters for protest, but border on the issue of politics and the issue of amendments to the constitution
He said, “On an intellectual basis, the meeting of the National Working Committee and the chairman of our party looked at what was put forward as a charter of demands, 15 of them. We looked at it and most of the issues raised there are not matters for protest. That is because they border on the issue of politics and the issue of amendments to the constitution.
“And we took them one by one. First, they said ‘scrap the 1999 Constitution and replace it with a people-made constitution for the Federal Republic of Nigeria through a sovereign national conference followed by a national referendum. The question is this, who will scrap the 1999 constitution? Is it a president who is elected and sworn to oppose the 1999 constitution? Even the right of a protester to protest is predicated on their rights under the 1999 constitution.
“The constitutional amendments in Nigeria cannot be done by presidential fiat. The president alone cannot sack the 1999 constitution. It requires four-fifths of the members of the National Assembly and two-thirds of the State (House of) Assembly to be able to do so. The first demand is asking of the president what he does not have the power and will to do.”
The APC also frowned at the push to have the Senate sacked, leaving only the House of Representatives to take care of the business of lawmaking.
Basiru stated that even the APC state chairmen could not agree less than that it was a contradiction since what it requires was just an amendment and not a total discarding of the entire constitution.
The APC National Secretary added that there is an ongoing constitutional amendment by the National Assembly, saying nybody legitimately interested in cutting costs of governance should prepare the necessary memorandum, and mobilise the National Assembly members as well as the State Assembly so that it can be amended.