By Egejuru Austin T.
Bothered by the constant takes of police brutality and abuse of power, the Federal House of Representatives member representing Mbaitoli and Ikeduru, Rt Hon Henry Nwawuba, have sponsored a bill For an Act to Alter The CFRN, To provide for Judicial Review of All Activities of The Nigeria Police.
The bill have as at yesterday sitting, scaled through the 2nd Reading.
The Bill seeks a review of the provision of Section 215(5) of CFRN which removes the Nigeria Police (NP) and it’s decision making processes from judicial review, and vests command and control entirely with the President in a manner that conflict with the democratic ideals of due process and rule of law.
Nwawuba, in the Bill reiterated that the Nigeria Police is a creation of law and exists to secure and protect the people of Nigeria.
As such, the decisions, activities, actions and authority of the Nigeria Police must be subject to judicial review. A constitutional provision that in effect places the Nigeria Police above the law is anti-democratic.
“Twenty years into our present democratic republic, the continued existence of Sec. 215(5) is an aberration that makes a mockery of our democratic journey and puts the progress that we have made at great cost, the Bill noted.
Section 315(5) excludes the Land Use Act, the National Youth Service Corps Act, and the National Security Agencies and the Public Complaints Commission Act from legislative review and reform under regular order. In effect, it makes these laws part of the constitution, thus making reforms extremely unlikely and almost certainly impossible.
Aware that the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria in Section 4(2) says that “the National Assembly shall have the power to make laws for the peace, order, and good governance of the federation or any part thereof with respect to any matter included in the Exclusive Legislative List”.
To then select from statutes, from the abundance of legislation and put them in the Constitution in a manner that effectively places them beyond legislative reform in the regular order violates the intention of Sec. 4(2) of the Constitution and amounts to an unjustifiable derogation of the legislative authority of the National Assembly, the Bill added.
