Mark tasks Nigerians on constitution review, security

DESPITE the fury over the alleged $620,000 bribe collected by the Chairman of the House of Representatives Ad Hoc committee that investigated fuel subsidy management, Farouk Lawan, Senate President David Mark, yesterday said that the upper chamber would not be distracted in the conduct of its constitutional role.

He, therefore, charged all committees handling investigations to carry them to logical conclusion.

Mark, in an address at the commencement of the second legislative session of the seventh Senate, also charged the committee on the review of the 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, 1999 as amended to diligently handle the assignment with a view to responding to the yearnings of Nigerians.

Stating the resolve of the Senate to carry out is oversight functions, he said: ‘’This Senate will continue to work to expose corruption and poor administration in all areas of our national life. This is our constitutional duty. We must not allow ourselves to be cajoled into slumber or succumb to blackmail in the discharge of our duties.

“We will do all we can to uphold transparency and integrity in governance. In this regard, all pending investigations should be speedily concluded without compromising thoroughness and detail. We will, however,  continue to bring all requisite legislative pressure to bear on the right quarters to do the right things with our reports’.

Mark added: “We will continue to pursue the enactment of laws for good governance. We must not fail on this basic task. It is a duty we owe our people. It is through people oriented laws that we can respond to their needs.”

Commending them for the journey so far, he reminded senators that the security challenge is a war that must be fought with all available resources.

“This Senate is very mindful of the increasing security challenges facing the nation. The workers of evil have continued in the ignominious waste of lives and property through acts of terrorism and violent crimes. I wish to, on your behalf, commiserate with Nigerians, and our international friends who have lost loved ones in this violent campaign against the peace, unity, and sovereignty of our nation. As I mentioned sometime last year, I still believe that this is a struggle between light and darkness.”

He continued: “Let me assure Nigerians that good conscience, dialogue, understanding, tolerance and pragmatic security approaches are what we require to triumph over the forces of darkness. We spent yesterday reviewing our current security situations and we are going to continue the discussion at Uyo next week. We must do everything humanly possible to restore peace and order immediately.

“Importantly, I wish to reassure Nigerians that we are not resting on our oars. In addition to our previous efforts and in response to the current realities and challenges, the Senate is dedicating its forthcoming Retreat to finding lasting solutions to this carnage and unwarranted attack on the nation. While in Uyo, we will brainstorm and interact with stakeholders and experts, to chart policy directions that will arrest this rapid descent to anarchy with consequences well beyond our imagination.”

On the resumption of the review of the 1999 constitution as amended, Mark assured that the chamber would do the needful but called on Nigerians to take active part in the exercise.

Mark continued: “May I also emphasise that constitution amendment remains one of our major tasks. This is because we believe that it holds the key to our many structural deformities such as insecurity, endemic corruption, poor governance, dysfunctional and comatose local council system. Already, the Constitution Review Committee has called for memoranda from Nigerians and interest groups.

“The submission is still ongoing. I wish to urge Nigerians to take advantage of this opportunity as well as the subsequent public hearings to make inputs on how to make our constitution serve us better. As usual this constitution review process will be participatory, transparent, and inclusive. We did it before. We will do it again and even better because we have experience and precedence to our advantage.”

He equally assured that lapses observed in the nation’s electoral process would be corrected.

“Permit me to also emphasise that we will work to strengthen our electoral processes. There is no doubt that the Sixth National Assembly made its mark in electoral reforms which resulted in the locally and internationally acknowledged improvements in the 2011 general election.  However, it is clear that more work needs to be done. We will work to ensure that the loopholes in our electoral laws and processes which unscrupulous Nigerians exploit to undermine the collective will of the electorate are plugged. The truth is that if we have to move forward as a country, we must get our processes of political recruitment right. This we are committed to do’’.

-Guardian

Posted by admin on Jun 21 2012. Filed under Legislature, Senate. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry