TELL Magazine

The National Assembly is in the best position to help Nigeria out of the current constitutional crisis. Tunji Abayomi, lawyer and human rights activist stated this in a letter to Ovie Omo-Agege, deputy Senate president. According to the lawyer, the legislature can set in motion a new constitutional order, having derived its powers from the mandate given to them by the people at election. The letter was a response to the senator’s recent statement that the Senate cannot give Nigeria a new constitution.

Abayomi said Omo-Agege was right by saying that the legislature or government cannot force a constitution on the people. However, the lawyer said that as it is in the United Kingdom where there is no written constitution, and the parliament derives its powers from votes of the people, the votes that Nigerians gave legislators grant them the authority to set in motion the needed constitutional order to get the constitution.

He said, “It follows that the National Assembly has legislative powers to make law to enable the peoples of Nigeria to give to themselves a Constitution.”

The lawyer wants the National Assembly to learn from the example of Chile, which recently rejected the constitution given to the country by the military government of General Augusta Pinochet after a referendum.

Below is a copy of the letter: