I cannot believe these idiots. They have shelved the constitutional review because of some stupid disagreement, now they are fighting over the 18 jeeps bought for the purpose. Can MEND please bomb the senate! Their house is on fire and look at what these braggats are fighting over.

If we cannot agree on a committee for the JCCR, what is the point of even discussing a constitutional review that will allow us to live together as one nation?




[center][size=14pt]JCCR: 18 Prado Jeeps causes disquiet in Senate[/size]
By Adetutu Folasade-Koyi, Assistant Editor, Abuja [/center]

There are rumbles in the Senate over purchase of 18 Toyota Prado sports utility vehicles (SUV) meant to facilitate constitution amendment in the National Assembly.

The federal lawmakers dumped the idea of a joint review of the Constitution by the two chambers after disagreeing on the designation of Deputy Speaker of the House of Representatives, Usman Bayero Nafada, on the joint committee.

Before the parting of ways, however, there was a proposal to buy at least 18 jeeps to facilitate the work of the then Joint Committee on Constitution Review (JCCR).

The vehicles were meant for principal officers of the JCCR and chairmen of six sub-committees "to aid the movement across the six geo-political zones during the constitution review exercise", it was gathered.

The purchase was to be funded from the N1 billion allocation specifically appropriated in the 2009 budget for the exercise.

The JCCR has 88 members with 44 lawmakers from the Senate and the House of Representatives.

Deputy Senate President, Ike Ekweremadu, leads the upper chamber's team while Nafada is the leader of the exercise in the House of Representatives.

Last month, Daily Independent reported that lawmakers had written to the management of the National Assembly, the custodian of the N1 billion budget, to release the money to both chambers.

The two leaders wrote different memos asking for the release of the fund which, they stated, was meant to facilitate the constitution amendment.

Although the National Assembly management balked, it was learnt that disbursement of the N1 billion has started, part of which was used to buy the Prado Jeeps, now a source of contention.

The committee is divided over the formula to use in sharing the vehicles.

But another round of controversy has ensued as some officials are already being assigned the vehicles much to the annoyance of members.

A member of the committee who declined to be named reiterated that "members are asking questions".

"With the collapse of the JCCR, we believe that all arrangements in that direction had collapsed as well. We were, however, surprised that some Senators and members of the House of Representatives are being assigned Toyota Prado jeeps, while some of us are consigned to using our official cars. We are definitely asking questions," he said.

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