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Barring any last-minute change, President Bola Tinubu will receive a bill seeking to return Nigeria to a regional system of government sometime in the coming week.
Drafted by Dr Akin Fapohunda, a retired director in the federal civil service, the bill is titled 'A Bill for an Act to Substitute the Annexure to Decree 24 of 1999 with new governance model for the Federal Republic of Nigeria’.
It seeks among others, new extant laws to be cited as “The Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria New Governance Model for Nigeria Act 2024.”
Recall that a copy of the draft, which circulated on social media last week, was said to have been submitted to the House of Representatives for legislative action.
However, the duo of the House spokesman, Akin Rotimi and the Chairman, Rules and Business, Francis Waive, while disowning the bill, stressed that it was not before the committee for deliberation.
The drafter had earlier stated his intention to interface with members of the National Assembly ahead of the transmission of the private bill to the parliament.
But per Saturday Punch, Fapohunda said he had resolved to send the proposed piece of legislation to President Tinubu, who may in turn present the same to the parliament as an executive bill.
The preliminaries of the bill read in part, “Whereas Nigeria, its peoples and government have been governed under Decree 24 of 1999 that was handed down by the then military government without the express consent of the people despite the preamble of ‘We, the people.’
“Whereas the said Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria 1999 (as amended) is not autochthonous as it does not evolve from the deliberations and consensus of the Nigerian People; whereas the peoples of Nigeria now desire and effectively demand for a change to a constitution based on federal/regional system of government.
“Whereas the federal and regional governments are to operate within the provisions of this Constitution, it is within the discretion of the ethnic blocs within the states that constitutes a given region to aggregate or disaggregate as provinces, divisions and districts, while being in control of their affairs without let or hindrance at whatever level of governance.”