The House of Representatives came under fire on Thursday for reversing its earlier decision on the removal of immunity for the vice president, governors and deputy governors.
Civil Society Organisations, including the Centre for Accountability and Open Leadership and the Civil Society Legislative Advocacy Centre, in separate interviews with The PUNCH, faulted the House’s decision.
Two bills on executive immunity removal and death sentence passed a second reading on Wednesday, with Nigerians expecting the parliament to subject them to a public hearing to garner stakeholders’ input ahead of the third and final reading.
The Deputy Speaker of the House of Representatives, Benjamin Kalu, who presided over the plenary session in the absence of the Speaker, Tajudeen Abbas, said the volte face on the bills was to enable the House to conduct a more robust debate by the lawmakers.
Kalu explained that the bills would be subjected to debate, considering their sensitivity.
“We want to apologise to the sponsors of the bills, but this action is to enable the House to have a further debate considering the importance of the subject matters,” Kalu said.
However, the Chairman of the Centre for Accountability and Open Leadership, Debo Adeniran, said the proposal of the bill was bound to fail because it mentioned only the removal of the immunity clause for the vice president and the deputy governors.
“For so long, we have campaigned that nobody in Nigeria should be treated as being higher than the other and be given that immunity clause. That one could commit heinous crimes and would not be tried by a court of law. Whether criminal or civil, everybody should be subjected to the dictates of our laws and the intervention of the judiciary.
“But then, we thought that they would let it scale through. But since they disaggregated the principal and their deputy, we knew that something sinister had been happening. As soon as they said that it’s only the vice president and deputy governors that would lose their immunity, as soon as they mentioned it, I knew that it would fail.
“Because the constitution provides that they contested elections on joint tickets, the tickets are not separate, whatever happens to the principal happens to his deputy. So, if they want to remove it, they should remove it wholesale. And if they want to remove it for civil offences, they should retain it for criminal offences,” he said.
He added that public officials should be made to face the law, after losing their immunity, in order to ensure a similitude of equality before the law.
“So basically, we can keep on managing. But what we should not do is to allow them to go scot-free as soon as they lose immunity. Whether or not they were caught committing criminal acts while they were in office, they should be subjected to re-examination after they get out of office. I mean the President, Vice President, Governors and their Deputies. So that at the end of the day, all animals will be seen to be equal, and none should be treated as being more equal than others,” Adeniran further stated.
On his part, the Executive Director of the Civil Society Legislative Advocacy Centre, Ibrahim Musa Rafsanjani, lamented that the provision of immunity for the president, governors and vice president made for “reckless governance in the country and lack of accountability by elected officials.’’
Noting that immunity is only an additional protection for people in power to abuse their office, the activist observed that such executive protection does not happen anywhere else except in Nigeria and a few other corrupt countries.
He noted, “First and foremost, immunity within the context of reckless governance in Nigeria is dangerous for our democracy and accountability. This means that a President, Vice President, Governor, a Deputy Governor, can loot and kill and do anything they want within the period that he or she is in power, usually four years or eight years, and nothing is going to happen to such kind of person.
“So, immunity is only an additional protection for people in power to abuse the power, and nothing happens to them.‘’
“In other places, there’s no reason that you are in a position of power that you break the law, that you steal, you loot, you kill and then you will get covered. There is nowhere that kind of thing will happen, only in Nigeria and some few places where there is much impunity.
“As far as I’m concerned, immunity is not something we should be proud of. If you are a President, and you know you have not done anything wrong, there is every provision for seeking redress or protection of your rights as a citizen, same as the VP, the governors or their deputies,” he said.
Meanwhile, a lawmaker and member of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) who spoke with journalists in confidence said the bill would not succeed.
He said, “I have nothing much to say on the immunity removal clause because the President will not sign it into law. It looks good on paper but in fairness to the sponsor, I will say this is dead on arrival.
“Our elected people love power. The President want to enjoy immunity from prosecution, and the Vice President, 36 State Governors and their deputies are not exempted. It is possible that the powers that be want the bill to die on the floor, but let’s see how the debate will go.”
On the death penalty, he had this to say, “There is a global campaign to expunge the death penalty from the laws governing a democratic society. I think members lobbied to have this bill returned for debate to enable them to speak to the issues involved. This is just my personal opinion.”
Similarly, the House, through its spokesman, Akin Rotimi, gave reasons for the new twist on the bills.
In a statement issued on Thursday, Mr Rotimi said, “During plenary on Wednesday, March 26, 2025, the House passed 42 constitution amendment bills for second reading, including, a bill to amend the constitution to qualify the immunity of the President and remove the immunity of the Vice President, Governors, and Deputy Governors, sponsored by Solomon Bob.
“This bill aims to curb corruption, eradicate impunity, and enhance accountability in public office.
The second one was “A bill to amend the constitution to review penalties for certain capital offences in line with international best practices, sponsored by Benjamin Kalu and six others.
“These bills, along with 40 others, were passed for second reading without debate, in accordance with the provisions of the House Standing Orders (11h edition), and were referred to the House Committee on Constitution Review.
“However, during the plenary on Thursday, March 27, 2025, the House resolved to rescind the passage of these two bills and relist them for a second reading to allow for a more extensive and robust debate on their general principles.
“This decision, reaffirmed by Deputy Speaker Benjamin Kalu, who presided over the session, underscores the House’s commitment to diligent and transparent lawmaking, particularly on sensitive legislative matters.”
According to the statement, “At the first and second reading stages, the content of any bill reflects solely the views of its sponsor(s) and not the position of the House or its leadership. The House formally engages with a bill only after it progresses to the committee stage, where public hearings are conducted.”
He added that the bills have not been discarded or removed from consideration, stressing that “They remain part of the legislative process and will be revisited at a later date. The decision to rescind their passage for the second reading is in line with the House Standing Orders (Eleventh edition) and is intended solely to allow for thorough debate before further legislative action.”
The PUNCH
