DEPUTY Senate President and Chairman, Senate Committee on the Review of the 1999 Constitution, Ike Ekweremadu, Tuesday, gave insight on why the proposed National Conference cannot be sovereign as being agitated by some people.
Senator Ekweremadu specifically said that convocation of a Sovereign National Conference without legal and constitutional framework would end up throwing the country into anarchy.
Speaking when the Chairman, Presidential Advisory Committee on National Dialogue, Dr Femi Okurounmu, led members of his committee to him on consultation, the Deputy Senate President disclosed that the National Assembly was already working on how the result of the exercise could be used to give Nigeria a new constitution.
According to him, “when we hear people talking about sovereign national conference; there must be a legal framework for it. You don’t wake up when you have a
constitutional conference in place and begin to say you want a sovereign national conference to impose the will of some people on everybody without a legal basis for what they are doing. Otherwise, we are calling anarchy.”
He further stated that, “Now that we have looked at the 1999 Constitution from 1999 till now, and we tried to do some amendments, it is therefore possible that based on our experience in the practice and the exercise of the review process, there are changes that are fundamental that must be made to make sure that this country progresses.
“And so, that is where your job comes in. My understanding from what you said is that your committee is to create framework for this exercise, to provide intellectual background to enable those who will have the conversation to do something that is seamless.
“It is not an easy job because it is difficult at this stage to determine the character of representation but that is the business of your committee so. We are not going to worry ourselves about that. We believe that you will deal with that.
