Indication has emerged that the 8th National Assembly may any moment from now embark on a fresh Constitution amendment exercise as the House of Representatives yesterday constituted a new Ad-Hoc Committee under the leadership of the Deputy Speaker, Rt. Hon. Sulaiman Lasun, to undertake the onerous task.
Speaker of the House, Rt. Hon. Yakubu Dogara, announced the membership of the committee at the close of plenary, an indication that the Senate will do the same soon.
Members of the committee include all principal officers of the House with other members of the House like Hon. Sunday Karimi, Abubakar Chika, Jonathan Gaza, Aishatu Jibril Dukku, among numerous others.
Recall that the last 7th Assembly undertook the 1999 Constitution amendment for several months with about N8bn expended without any result.
The last Assembly submitted the Fourth Amendment Alteration Bill to the immediate past President Goodluck Jonathan, who refused assent while citing some reasons, a situation which almost rendered the whole exercise useless.
Also, recall about a couple of months ago, Speaker Dogara reiterated that the 8th Assembly will re-submit the Alteration Bill to President Muhammadu Buhari, without commencing the exercise afresh.
Based on what was gathered, the joint Senate and House Constitution Amendment Committee will go and dust up the Bill passed by the last Assembly, take fresh amendments and re-submit to the President.