From Tony Akowe, Abuja
House of Representatives Deputy Speaker Idris Ahmed Wase has said the House will pay special attention to Local Government, Electoral and Judicial reforms in the course of amending the 1999 Constitution.
Wase spoke yesterday at a retreat for members of the House Ad Hoc Committee on Constitution Review.
The deputy, who is also the Chairman of the Constitution Review Committee of the House, said the issue of state creation as well as women participation in politics would be given special attention by the House committee.
He said: “This is about nation-building. We have the opportunity to write our names in gold. Whatever we are going to do here, we should be guided by the fact that Nigeria needs very critical reforms at this very particular moment and time.
“By our own design at the secretariat, we thought we should segment the issues in the country so that we will have them in batches. We are not going to have one batch constitutional review, like it was done in the past. As the issues come, we shall be treating them and we have classified them.”
“As at today, we require electoral reforms. That should be done, and this is the right moment to have this one done. Anything short of this particular period – you know how we behave – many misgivings will come in.”
Wase said the constitution amendment should accommodate judicial reform, local government reform, women participation in politics, among others.
