Constitution Review: CSOs Call For Scrap Of Senate

As part of its contribution to the ongoing debates for the amendment of the Nigerian Constitution, the Coalition of Civil Society Organizations in Katsina State has called for the scrapping of the Senate arm of the National Assembly to enable the practice of a unicameral legislature.

According to the coalition, it will help reduce the cost of governance and usher in a less expensive legislative practice in the country.

This among other resolutions was the outcome of the organization’s public hearing on the proposed constitutional amendment with some stakeholders drawn from different Civil Society Organizations.

Arising from the last session of the public hearing of elite members from a different coalition of civil society organizations in the state, they discussed 16 key aspects to be amended in the constitution.

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The areas include the federal structure in governance and power devolution, public revenue, fiscal federalism, and revenue allocation, constitutional provision for the establishment of state police, judicial reform, adjudication of election and pre-election matters, and other justice delivery concerns.

Others are electoral reforms that will make the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, deliver transparent, credible, free, and fair elections, political parties, independent candidature and election management, residency and indigeneship, removal of immunity in prima face criminal cases, among others.

At the end of the hearing, the Chairman of the Coalition, Abdulrahman Abdullahi, said they have agreed due to how the issues affect the ordinary Nigerian and the people of the state.

According to him, the agreements reached included that the country needs to practice unicameral legislature as against the present bicameralism, resource control, and revenue sharing formula, as wells state police.

The resolutions will be presented at a zonal public hearing in Kaduna State for onward transmission as the contributions made by the coalition in the state.