Constitution: Senate suspends retreat on Jonathan’s veto

Senate has sus­pended a two-day retreat designed to artic­ulate a response to Presi­dent Goodluck Jonathan’s veto of alterations of the 1999 Constitution (as amended).

Last Monday, the president returned the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Ni­geria (Fourth Alteration) Act, 2015 to the National Assem­bly, citing legislative infrac­tions on executive powers.

Senate President, David Mark subsequently read the letter to his colleagues at Wednesday’s plenary. The Senator Ike Ekweremadu-led Committee on the Review of the Constitution (CRC) con­sequently scheduled a two-day retreat to deliberate on the president’s objections and fashion out a response.

Daily Sun learnt that the retreat was initially billed for two days (Wednesday and Thursday) but two factors ne­cessitated the shift. One was that the bill was not returned with the letter and secondly, the original copy was not re­turned to Mark.

The CRC subsequently directed that Mark write to Jonathan, requesting the origi­nal copy.