By Dansu Peter
The Nigerian Senate, on Wednesday, outlawed any Vice President who had completed a tenure of a sitting President and contested a fresh four years mandate shall not be eligible to run for a second term of office.
The new law has directly affected the former President Goodluck Jonathan who some admirers wish he re-contest in 2019.
This was done during voting in series of far reaching new Bills being passed by the upper legislative chamber.
The Bill sought that any Vice President who had completed a tenure of a sitting President and contested a fresh four years mandate shall not be eligible to run for a second term of office.
The Senate also approved the membership of former Presidents of the Senate and Speakers of the House of Representatives of the Council of State. The lawmakers however rejected deletion of the Land Use Act from the Constitution.
Also ill-fated was the move to alter the Second Schedule, Parts I and II of the Constitution to move certain items to the Concurrent Legislative List to give more legislative powers to states.
The lawmakers also rejected the 35 per cent and 20 per cent affirmative action at both federal level and state level, respectively.
The proposed amendment was to also delineate the extent to which the federal legislature and state assemblies can legislate on the items that have been moved to the Concurrent Legislative List.
Also approved were independent candidacy, removal of state independent electoral commission and transfer of the functions to the Independent National Electoral Commission.
Proposal to allow funding of the state Houses of Assembly directly from the Consolidated Revenue Fund of the states was also granted.
These were some of the outcomes of the ongoing votes at the Senate on the 33 proposed amendments to the 1999 Constitution.
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