The leadership and members of the organization said in a strongly worded statement in Benin on Thursday that they received with rude shock “the rejection of the autonomy of State Houses of Assembly and the Judiciary in the ongoing amendment of the country’s constitution for the strengthening and deepening of democracy in Nigeria.”
In the statement signed by its Public Relations Officer, Comrade Osaze Edigin, EDOCSO said it should be noted that Uyi Igbe-led Edo State House of Assembly in 2014 rejected a similar attempt to give autonomy to state houses of assembly in the country.
“The continuous rejection of this component of our constitutional amendment by persons elected to represent the voice of the people calls for concern and urgent response before our democratic growth is retrogressed twenty years backward by elected few.”
The people’s aspiration, the organization said, should be paramount above the desire of any political party leaders in a true democratic dispensation.
“We are being taken aback that an arm of government would vote against its independence, the interpretation of such action is that, the legislative and judicial arm of government should continuously remain as the apron string of the executive arm of government. For democracy to be deepened and conforms to international best practices, it must have the ingredients of checks and balances among the three arms of government,” it asserted.
EDOCSO demanded that members of Edo State House of Assembly should rescind its resolution for the rejection of the autonomy of the state houses of assembly and the judiciary before it is sent to the National House Assembly to save the state from the impending shame, since 32 states have already approved same in the contrary.
“If this request is not considered as soon as possible, we will not fail as a formidable and foremost network of civil society groups in the state to mobilize Edo people in the shortest time to remind our lawmakers that their election is to represent the yearnings of the masses not that of their political party or leaders.”
The state houses of assembly and the judiciary, it said represent the voice of the people and that the people are not willing to trade it on the altar of political patronage and personal aggrandizemeinnt by any elected representative.
“The legislature should be the most powerful arm of government because it represents the people from whom sovereignty belongs to. Our lawmakers are hereby reminded to think of posterity at the end of legislative representation.”
