C’River Deputy Governor Booed at Constitution Review Public Hearing

by crossriverwatch admin

Cross River State Deputy Governor, Barrister Effiok Cobham was booed at the public hearing organized by the Senate on the review of the 1999 constitution in Calabar.

The South South Zonal Senate Public Hearing was held on Thursday November 15, 2012 at  Mounty Suites in Calabar and was declared open by the Deputy Senate President, Ike Ekweremadu.

A crossriverwatch reporter at the event reports that, Cobham attracted the wrath of participants at the hearing when he canvassed that local government councils should be turned to administrative arms of the state government at the grassroots level.

As a result of the outright rejection of his position which is the position of the Cross State Government, he was interrupted for several minutes as the participants booed him for what some described as an unpopular position.

It did not end there, Cobham also agitated for the establishment of state police which again attracted stiff opposition by people and another round of booing but that did not deter him from completing his position and he told the crowd that he refused to be intimidated.

However, Cobham was cheered when he commented on the amendment of the present revenue formula.

In his remark, the Deputy Senate President assured participants especially the traditional rulers and other opinion leaders that everyone’s opinion will count in the constitution review process and debunked reports that the Senate has foreclosed the creation of new states from the review.

He said: “Let me seize this opportunity to make some clarifications on state creation which is usually one of the dominant issues at this level of public hearing”.

“It is not true that the National Assembly has ruled out state creation. It is also not true that it is pursuing any special agenda on the matter. We have no such powers”.

“Rather, the position of the National Assembly is that while it is committed to ensuring that every request is treated on its merit, taking constitutional requirements, good governance, justice, and national development into account, Nigerians need to understand that the processes for state creation is slightly different from that of conventional constitution amendment”.