Draft constitution ready March 2021, says Omo-Agege

The Deputy President of the Senate, Ovie Omo-Agege, said on Thursday that the draft constitution being considered by the National Assembly would be ready in the first quarter of next year.

Omo-Agege stated this at the first meeting of the standing Committee of the Senate on the review is the 1999 Constitution.

He presented the work plan that had been proposed for the input of his colleagues.

He said, “It is more of a roadmap of the Committee with the aim of presenting our report to the Senate plenary at the end of the first quarter of 2021.

“We have collated previous reports such as the 2014 Constitutional Conference Report and the El-Rufai’s report on restructuring, which are being analysed.”

He also said bills already submitted by federal lawmakers would be considered.

Omo-Agege said the steering committee, comprising all principal officers of the Senate held two meetings on the 26th of February, 2020 and on the 3rd of June, 2020, respectively, to work out the modalities for carrying out this very important national assignment.

He said, “Among the major fallout or outcome of the meetings were that the El-Rufai report on restructuring and the 2014 Constitutional Conference report were recommended to be part of the committee’s working documents, which has been obtained by the secretariat of the committee for duplication and circulation to members.

Our secretariat has obtained all the Bills for the alteration of the Constitution referred so far to our counterparts in the House of Representatives and we have transmitted ours to them for further legislative activities.”