Senate President, Dr Ahmad Lawan on Monday revealed that he had lobbied the Kaduna State governor, Malam Nasir el-Rufai to prevail on his colleagues to encourage their respective state houses of assembly to transmit back to the National Assembly their responses on the bills sent to them on the Constitution amendment, IgbereTV reports
The National Assembly in March 2022 passed 44 bills to amend some key provisions of the 1999 Constitution and transmitted them to the 36 states for their endorsement or otherwise as part of the constitutional amendment process.
The process requires the endorsement of not less than two-thirds of the 36 state houses of assembly for any of the bills to sail through but far less than half of the 36 states were believed to have so far transmitted their responses back to the National Assembly.
The Senate President spoke against this backdrop while declaring open the Distinguished Parliamentarians Lecture 2022 which was organised by the National Institute of Legislative and Democratic Studies(NILDS).
The lecture was delivered by the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Rt. Hon. Femi Gbajabiamila.
Lawan told Governor El-Rufai who chaired the occasion: “We will task you to lobby for us. We have sent (to the states) the outcome of our constitution review and we are yet to receive all from the states.
“So we should be able to wind up this process by getting responses from the state houses of assembly. Even if it is one month left, we have the capacity, working together, to ensure that we pass some of the legislations that are required in a very expeditious manner. Lobby your governor colleagues because I can see that you do that very well.”
Lawan said the lecture was one of the laudable initiatives of NILDS geared towards bridging the gap between the electorates and their elected representatives
