National discourse on the Review of the 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria intensified when President Umaru Musa Yar’ Adua announced the setting up of a committee of the National Assembly to review it. Much of the debate since then has revolved around familiar issues that had been raised severally since 1999. However new insights to some of the time worn concerns began to emerge when the Justice Muhammad Uwais led Electoral Reforms Committee (ERC) submitted its Report. The Report which was based on widespread consultations and public hearings drew instant national attention not just because it highlights what is wrong with Nigeria’s electoral system and proffers solutions but also because it re-enforces the need to reform the 1999 Constitution. Besides the Uwais Report, a lot of the national debate is being devoted to issues that emerged from hindsight after the 2007 elections with the litigations that followed many results.  There is for instance the question of the real tenure of a governor whose election victory is revalidated by a court midway into his or her term, and also the seeming dissonance in the judgments of different Election Appeal Courts even when the facts are similar. There are strong arguments in favour of placing a time limit on election cases and swearing in elected persons only after the cases have been disposed of. Many commentators seem to be in favour of stringent constitutional provisions against defection from one party to the other by elected persons. Although media reports on women’s voices have been few,  the issues of women’s rights as Nigerian citizens, their rights as wives and mothers, their rights to health, the issue of gender based affirmative action, discrimination and formal gender equality remain as germane as they were in 1999.

Ahead of the inauguration of the National Assembly Joint Committee on Constitution Review the Senate President, David Mark listed areas of the 1999 Constitution that in the view of the Senate should be considered for review. He mentioned the following 15 areas:

•  Whether and how the Fundamental Obligations of the Government could be made binding and actionable.
• Whether or not the scope of the rights of citizens could be expanded beyond its present confines.
• Ways and means of attaining the complex autonomy and independence of the legislature.
• Uniformity/Harmonization of tenure for Chief Executives at Federal, State and Local Governments.
• The issue of removal or retention of immunity clause as it pertains to Chief Executives at all Tiers of Government
• The desirability or otherwise of the subsistence of State Independent Electoral Commissions.
• The autonomy of Independence of National Electoral Commission
• The autonomy or otherwise of Local Government Councils as truly third tier of Government would be reviewed as well as where to locate the powers of Local Governments.
• The abrogation or otherwise of State/Local Government Joint Account
• State Creation
• Devolution of powers
• Revenue sharing and related matters
• Election matters and litigation processes
• Mineral resources (right of exploration and exploitation)
• True Federalism within the Nigerian Nation.

It is instructive that the really perplexing issues arising from the 2007 experience and the court cases hardly featured in Senator David Mark’s list of priorities. Among these emerging issues are:

• Tenure of Governors whose elections were revalidated after litigations
• Lack of uniformity in Appeal Court verdicts
• Appropriate time to swear in elected persons- before or after disposal of court cases
• Putting a reasonable limit to the period of post election litigations
• Defection by elected persons from the parties in which they won elections.