There are clear indications that if the struggle to achieve constitutional amendment to much criticised 1999 Constitution scaled through, the Federal Government may lose 44 out of its 68 powers in exclusive list, a legal icon based in Ibadan, Chief Niyi Akintola has said.
Chief Akintola made this known while speaking on political programme tagged political circuit on Saturday at the private radio station based in Ibadan, Fresh FM.
The senior lawyer, who is a lead consultant to the National Assembly on the ongoing constitution review exercise, also said opinion across the country is overwhelmingly in favour of the formation of state police.
According to Akintola; “98 per cent of the memoranda submitted to the constitution review committee from across the six geopolitical zones supported state police, a development he attributed to the effect of the security challenges across the country”.
Akintola, who was a governorship aspirant of the All Progressives Congress, APC in 2019 in Oyo State affirmed that by the time the constitution amendment exercise is concluded, the 68 awesome powers donated to the occupier of the office the president in Part 1 of the Second Schedule to the constitution on the Exclusive Legislative List may come down to 24.
“Distribution of powers between the federal and the state governments recognised as the federating units has been overwhelmingly weighted in favour of the Federal Government, leaving the states helpless on some germane issues.
“Item such as taxation of incomes, railway, police, public holidays, stamp duties, resource mining and 62 others are reserved only for the Federal Government in the constitution”.
The legal icon, however, reiterated that the final decision on the constitution review exercise rests on the National Assembly as he and other consultants could only make recommendations distilled from the submitted memoranda.
