“Nigeria will have a new constitution by December 2025” — Reps

The House of Representatives Constitution Review Committee, has announced that the country will get a new constitution by December 2025.

This was disclosed by the Deputy Speaker and the Committee’s Chairman of the House of Reps, Benjamin Kalu on Wednesday.

According to Kalu, the committee would set up a realistic time, specifically December 2025, to complete the committee’s activities.

Recalling the significance of previous attempts at constitutional review, Kalu, who represents Bende Federal Constituency, Abia State, noted that since 1999, the House has made  reforms including judicial reforms, electoral reforms, age reduction, among others.

He said, “Since 2010, the National Assembly has successfully amended and made landmark changes to our constitution since it was first handed over to Nigeria in 1999 by the military regime of General Abdulsalam Abubakar.

“Since then, some of the significant amendments successfully made by previous efforts include judicial reforms, electoral reforms, age reduction, allowing younger persons to be appointed into the Independent National Electoral Commission as Chairman or Resident Electoral Commissioners and also allowing a lower age for contest into certain elective positions, moving certain responsibilities of government from the exclusive legislative cist into the Concurrent legislative list to allow for increased federalism among other things.”

He added that such would be reintroduced in the current review committee, saying, “We hope we will get it right this time.”

He urged the proponents of those laws to commence timely advocacy to get the matter right, adding that there was a need to constantly revisit the nation’s constitution considering the nature of the country.

According to him, the committee was aware of Nigerians’ eagerness to conclude the review in record time, adding that the committee would be open to other areas of review to ensure a viable constitutional democracy.

Gist Reel reports that this review would be the sixth time that the National Assembly would embark on the amendment of the nation’s constitution.