Senate President, Ahmad Lawan yesterday explained why the upper legislative chamber has not constituted a committee on the review of the Nigerian Constitution, saying it would commence work next month.
Lawan said the Constitutional Review Committee has not been set up because the Senate has been pre-occupied with other issues like the 2020 budget.
The Senate President spoke while receiving in audience the European Union Ambassador to Nigeria and ECOWAS, Ketil Karlsen who paid him a courtesy visit.
He however assured the nation that the committee will soon be put in place.
“Very soon, we will constitute our Committee on Constitutional Review. We haven’t done so yet because we have been engaged so much more with other issues.
“We believe that by the time we passed the budget, then our committee on Constitutional Review will be put in place. By next year January, the committee will start some work because we already have some references that require some kind of constitutional review,” Lawan said.
He told his guest that the will and determination to carry out reforms is there.
Lawan expressed appreciation to the support the EU has been extending to Nigeria particularly in the areas of the electoral process and political development and cooperation.
“Our democracy since 1999 has received a lot of support from the EU and this is making very positive impact. The relationship between the EU and the Nigerian government is not like it is with other organizations.
“We also have relationship at the level of legislature. We have the EU-ACPU joint parliamentary Assembly. We believe this is one area through which we can continue to discuss issues that affect us in relation to the EU or what we think we can be doing together,” Lawan said.
Lawan asked of EU for more support in the area of capacity building particularly for the Senate Committees on INEC, National Planning and Finance.
Earlier, Ambassador Karlsen said EU expressed the hope that the current EU leadership will “be able to establish even deeper relationship with Nigeria.”
Police to deploy 5,000 personnel for Adamawa LG Poll
The Police Command in Adamawa has said that it plans to deploy 5, 000 personnel for the Dec. 7, local government poll in the state.
Mr Audu Madaki, the state Commissioner of Police disclosed this in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) yesterday in Yola.
Madaki said that the police and other security agencies had prepared ground for peaceful conduct of the election.
“So far, the command has made preparation to deploy about 5,000 personnel to maintain law and order as well as to protect lives and property during the election.
“Security operatives will continue to remain neutral during elections, however; we would not hesitate to deal with whoever is found threatening peaceful conduct of the election,” Madaki said.
He said that policemen and other security personnel would be deployed in wards across the state to ensure peaceful conduct of the election.(NAN)
