State Police: Kano, Cross River, Abia, Niger, Benue, Oyo yet to approve bill; gets Nov 19 deadline

By Henry Umoru ABUJA—THERE are strong indications that the National Assembly is prepared to transmit the State Police Bill to President Bola Tinubu for assent as thirty states have so far approved the bill. The proposed State Police system has crossed a major constitutional hurdle, with 30 State Houses of Assembly approving the amendment required to pave the way for its establishment.

This leaves six states yet to submit approved bill to the National Assembly for onward transmission to the President for subsequent assent. The six states that have not approved the bill are Kano, Cross River, Abia, Niger, Benue and Oyo. The Senate has, however, given them up till November 15 to do so, warning that failure to respond by the deadline could be deemed as withholding approval.

The six states are expected to communicate their decisions before November 15, when the National Assembly intends to forward the proposed constitutional amendment to President Bola Tinubu for subsequent. Disclosing these while updating lawmakers on the progress of consultations with the 36 state legislatures on the proposed amendment yesterday, the Senate Leader, Senator Opeyemi Bamidele, APC, Ekiti Central, said the number of approvals had exceeded the constitutionally required two-thirds of the 36 state legislatures.

According to him, for the process to be rounded off, it has to be in three phases, with the National Assembly expected to pass the bill; the approval by at least two-thirds of the state legislature; and the President to sign the bill into law. He added that the National Assembly had fulfilled its responsibility by passing the bill and transmitting it to all 36 State Houses of Assembly for consideration and approval.

Bamidele said: “Let me explain again, for the avoidance of doubt, 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 assent. “The reason the writers of our Constitution, our forefathers, put all these specific words is to ensure that no part of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria can be easily amended without the buying in of all the critical stakeholders at all levels of governance.

“The passage of the bill was the responsibility of the National Assembly, and that has been completed. Approval is required from at least two-thirds of the 36 State Houses of Assembly in the country, while assent must subsequently be given by the President to complete the constitutional amendment process.’’ He explained that the constitutional requirements were deliberately designed to ensure that amendments to the nation’s supreme law enjoyed the participation and agreement of critical stakeholders across the different levels of government.

Bamidele stressed that the 30 approvals already received were significantly above the constitutional requirement of 24 states, describing the development as evidence of widespread support for the proposed reform. “Two important points need to be emphasised. First, we needed the approval of at least two-thirds of the states for this constitutional amendment to proceed.

“Two things that need to be emphasised here is that we needed two-thirds of the states at the very least for this to pass, and already two-thirds will be 24. So, as of yet, 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 30 states that have approved the proposal are Adamawa, Akwa Ibom, Anambra, Bauchi, Bayelsa, Borno, Delta, Ebonyi, Edo, Ekiti, Enugu, Gombe, Imo, Jigawa, Kaduna, Katsina, Kebbi, Kogi, Kwara, Lagos, Nasarawa, Ogun, Ondo, Osun, Plateau, Rivers, Sokoto, Taraba, Yobe and Zamfara.

With 24 approvals required, the 30 states have already taken the proposal beyond the constitutional threshold. However, Bamidele said the National Assembly was still expecting formal responses from the remaining states.