Constitution Amendment: National Assembly Shuns Supreme Court

The National As­sembly is set to ig­nore an order from the Supreme Court to maintain status quo ante on amendments of the 1999 Constitution (as amended). It was learnt that a con­stitutional face-off between the Presidency and the Na­tional Assembly on one hand, and the National Assembly and the Judiciary on the other hand, was imminent over the Fourth Alteration of the 1999 Constitution (as amended). Last week, the Supreme Court stopped the National Assembly from going ahead to enact into law, the Fourth Alteration Act, which the fed­eral legislature concluded on February 18, 2015. An April 13, 2015 let­ter addressed to Senate Presi­dent, David Mark, said President Goodluck Jonathan had ve­toed some of the fresh amend­ments, saying they infringed on executive powers. Two days after, the Senate Committee on the Review of the Constitution (CRC) at an emergency meeting, resolved that Deputy Senate President, Ike Ekweremadu, who also chairs the committee should raise a motion, to ask Senate President, David Mark, to for­mally write the President to return the original bill, includ­ing the signature page. The resolution was arrived at when the president returned the bill to the National Assem­bly with the signature page containing a photo-copied version of the signature of the Clerk to the National Assem­bly, Salisu Abubakar Maika­suwa. However, it was gathered at the weekend, that the two chambers of the National Assembly resolved to override the President’s veto on the amendments. The Sen­ate CRC took the decision at a meeting convened after last Wednesday’s plenary, adding that the House of Represen­tatives was on the same page with the Senate on overriding the president’s veto, sources stated.