…Abia, Benue, C/River, Kano, Niger, Oyo Get Monday Deadline
The National Assembly has secured the approval of 30 State Houses of Assembly for the proposed constitutional amendment to establish State Police, with six states yet to communicate their decisions on the bill.
Senate Leader, Opeyemi Bamidele, disclosed this on Wednesday during plenary, saying the outstanding states were Abia, Benue, Cross River, Kano, Niger and Oyo.
Bamidele said the six states had until Monday to complete the constitutional process and communicate their resolutions to the National Assembly ahead of the transmission of the amendment to President Bola Tinubu for assent.
He explained that the 30 states had already approved the proposed amendment, bringing the process closer to the constitutional threshold required for the establishment of State Police in the country.
The states that have approved the bill are Adamawa, Akwa Ibom, Anambra, Bauchi, Bayelsa, Borno, Delta, Ebonyi, Edo and Ekiti.
Others are Enugu, Gombe, Imo, Jigawa, Kaduna, Katsina, Kebbi, Kogi, Kwara and Lagos.
The remaining states that have approved the amendment are Nasarawa, Ogun, Ondo, Osun, Plateau, Rivers, Sokoto, Taraba, Yobe and Zamfara.
Bamidele said the constitutional amendment process involved three distinct stages: passage by the National Assembly, approval by at least two-thirds of the 36 State Houses of Assembly and presidential assent.
He identified passage, approval and assent as the three key constitutional requirements that must be fulfilled before the proposed amendment could become law.
“Three keywords are used in the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria 1999, as amended. The first word is passage, the second word is approval and the third word is assent,” he said.
According to him, the constitutional requirement for approval by state legislatures is 24 states, representing two-thirds of the 36 states of the federation.
He noted that the 30 approvals already secured had surpassed the constitutional requirement, indicating that the amendment had received sufficient backing from state legislatures to proceed to the next stage.
Bamidele described the level of support for the proposed establishment of State Police as evidence of its popularity among Nigerians, as expressed through their elected representatives in the various state assemblies.
“We already got 30 states, showing the popularity of this bill among Nigerians through the elected representatives in the State Houses of Assembly,” he said.
The Senate Leader expressed optimism that the remaining six states would conclude their legislative processes and communicate their decisions to the National Assembly before the Monday deadline.
He described the development as a positive moment for Nigeria’s democracy, expressing confidence that the outstanding approvals would further advance the constitutional amendment process and pave the way for the President’s assent.
Earlier, Deputy Senate President, Senator Jibrin Barau, had read a notice from the Clerk to the National Assembly, Kamoru Ogunlana, informing lawmakers that 29 states had approved the proposed amendment as of Tuesday, November 3.
However, Bamidele’s subsequent announcement on Wednesday raised the number of approving states to 30, leaving only six states yet to communicate their decisions to the National Assembly.
