The National Assembly has begun deliberations on a series of constitutional amendment proposals that could lead to the creation of 55 new states and 278 additional local government areas across Nigeria.
Deputy Senate President, Senator Barau Jibrin (APC, Kano North), disclosed this on Friday during a two-day joint retreat of the Senate and House of Representatives Committees on the Review of the 1999 Constitution, held in Lagos.
Jibrin, who also chairs the Senate Committee on Constitution Review, reaffirmed the legislature’s commitment to ensuring “people-centred and timely” constitutional amendments. He said lawmakers are working towards transmitting the first set of proposed amendments to the state Houses of Assembly before the end of the year.
“It has been a long journey to bring the Senate and the House of Representatives’ constitution amendment proposals that cut across several sections and deal with different subject matters,” Jibrin said in a statement issued by his spokesperson, Ismail Mudashir.
He revealed that the current phase of the constitutional review process includes 69 bills, 55 state creation requests, two boundary adjustments, and 278 local government creation proposals.
According to him, members of the committees are expected to deliberate on these issues and make recommendations to both chambers of the National Assembly.
“It is not going to be a simple task to achieve within two days, but I believe we can do it, especially as we have promised Nigerians that we will deliver the first set of amendments to the State Houses of Assembly before the end of this year,” he said.
Jibrin also called for unity and patriotism among lawmakers, urging them to set aside political or regional differences during deliberations.
“We are seated here as one committee. There should be no ‘we’ and ‘them’; we should be guided by the interests of Nigerians,” he said, expressing hope that the committee’s recommendations would meet the approval threshold stipulated in Section 9 of the Constitution.
