The National Assembly v. The President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria & Ors(2003)

CASE SUMMARY OF:

The National Assembly v. The President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria & Ors (2003) 

CITATION

CA/A/15/M/2003

(2003)JELR 41026 (CA) 

[2003] 9 NWLR (Pt. 824)104

PARTIES

Appellant:

• The National Assembly

Respondents:

• The President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria
• The Attorney-General of the Federation
• Independent National Electoral Commission 

COURT & BENCH

Court of Appeal | Constitutional Bench 

JUSTICES

George Adesola Oguntade (Presided and delivered the leading judgment )

Albert Gbadebo Oduyemi

Ibrahim Tanko Muhammad

DATE

On May, 12th 2003

Fact

The National Assembly exercised its powers under section 58 (5) of the 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria to override the President’s veto over the Electoral Bill, 2002,  and passed it into law. The constitutionality of the Electoral Act, 2002 was challenged in The National Assembly v The President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, where in 2002; the Electoral Bill was passed in the House of Representatives and transmitted to the Senate for concurrence. The Senate passed the Bill with amendments and transmitted same to the House of Representatives. After the amendments on the Bill were agreed upon and adopted the Bill was transmitted to the President for his assent on the 24th June 2002. The President returned the Bill to the National Assembly with reasons for his inability to give assent to the Bill. The Senate and the House of Representatives on the 25th and 26th September, 2002 respectively, by motion of veto override purportedly passed the bill into law by 55 Senators and 204 Honorable members.

The Independent National Electoral Commission challenged the constitutionality of section 15 of the Act. It contended that the section was inconsistent with sections 76, 116, 132, and 178 of the Constitution.

The trial court held that:

1. The Senate and the House of Representatives was each properly constituted when it exercised its power under section 58(5) of the Constitution to override the President’s veto on the Electoral Bill, 2002.
2. The Electoral Act, 2002 was validly passed by each House of the National Assembly.
3. Section 15 of the Electoral Act, 2002 which encroached on the power vested in the Independent National Electoral Commission by the Constitution to fix dates for elections to the offices of the President, Governor of each State of the Federation, the National Assembly,  and the House of Assembly of each State of the Federation is unconstitutional; null and void.

Being dissatisfied with the above decision the National Assembly appealed and the issue for determination was whether the trial court was right in setting aside section 15 of the Act. The first and second respondents in the appeal were also dissatisfied with the judgment of the lower court and cross-appealed. 

Issues

The issues for determination in the cross-appeal were as follows: 

1. Whether the Electoral Act, 2002 was validly passed by the National Assembly by its overriding the veto of the President by two-thirds majority of the two chambers of the National Assembly present as against two-thirds of all the members and by passing the Bill via a process of motion.
2. Whether section 15 of the Electoral Act, 2002 was unconstitutional and void for inconsistency with sections 76, 116, 132 and 178 of the Constitution.

Decision of the Court

Unanimously dismissing the appeal and allowing the cross-appeal, the Court of Appeal held that both Houses of the National Assembly can not override the President’s veto by merely passing a ‘motion for veto override.’ That the appropriate interpretation to be given to the phrase ‘and the bill is again passed by each House’ in section 58 (5) of the Constitution is that the bill should go through the right stages it had previously gone through when it was first passed.

Secondly, section 58 (5) of the Constitution further provided that a bill must be passed again by ‘each House by two-thirds majority’, which means two-thirds of the membership of the whole of the House of Representatives and of the Senate. Thus in order to override the President’s veto there must be at least, 73 members in the Senate and 240 members in the House of Representatives. Since they were only 55 Senators and 204 honorable members when the two Houses made the motion of veto override on the Bill on the 25th and 26th September  2002 respectively, the National Assembly was not properly constituted when the bill was passed into law.

Conclusion 

Finally, section 15 was declared null and void for being in conflict with sections 76, 116, 132, and 178 of the Constitution.

Interns Opinion 

We agree with the Court of Appeal on the interpretation of the phrase “and bill is again passed” for scrutiny sake and to amend the loopholes if seen in order to get a clean bill for the betterment of the country.

Certainly, we disagree with the inclusion of the word “all” by the Court of Appeal in the interpretation of the phrase “2/3 majority of each House” which was intentionally omitted by the drafters of the Constitution. We could verify that there are a few provisions in the Constitution that promulgated the word “all” to buttress its points like Section 9(2) and (3), etc.

So the trial court was right when it held that the 2/3 majority mentioned in section 58(5) of the Constitution is a 2/3 majority of the members present and voting provided that those members present formed the necessary quorum stipulated in section 54(1) and (2) of the Constitution for transacting the business of the house.