Abuja, Nigeria - The Nigerian National Assembly on Wednesday began a fresh attempt at reviewing the 1999 Constitution with the two Chambers (the Senate and the House of Representatives) setting up panels to midwife the process.

The 47-member Senate Committee on the amendment of the Constitution is headed by the Deputy Senate President, Senator Ike Ekweremadu, while the House 46-member ad-hoc committee on constitution alteration is headed by the Deputy Speaker, Emeka Ihedioha.

Announcing the membership of the Senate Committee at the resumption of its session, Senate President David Mark reiterated the commitment of the chamber to tinker with areas of the Constitution that had generated controversy -- State police, revenue allocation formula, power devolution and creation of additional States.

Speaker of the House of Representatives, Aminu Waziri Tambuwal said membership of the Committee included representatives from each of the 36 States of the federation and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Abuja, and eight other principal officers of the chamber including the yet-to-be-announced House Leader.

Specifically, Speaker Tambuwal had stated in June that “the seventh House of Representatives would continue the effort at constitution reforms already started by immediate past National Assembly.”

Tambuwal stated that the successful model of technical cooperation with the Senate that saw the first ever amendment in a civilian setting would “be adopted and fine tuned to again achieve results.”

According to Tambuwal, the amendment process will evolve from the yearnings and aspirations of the people, noting that the House had recognised the concerns of Nigerians on several issues, “including land reforms, electoral reforms, budgetary processes, fiscal federalism, local government and states creation,” among other requests.

Pana 15/09/2011