Speaker says constituency delineation long over due

Speaker of the House of Representatives,

According to the speaker's interview with NIGERIA NOW magazine, Dogara suggested that the exercise will be put on hold till 2019 elections to avoid possible displacement of sitting elected lawmakers.

In the interview, the Speaker noted that there have been clamour for more constituencies in view of rising population and other factors, and urged INEC to muster the political will to conduct the exercise in accordance with law.

He said: "The delineation is the responsibility of INEC, I don’t know why they are not doing it, it’s not the responsibility of the National Assembly. So they will need to muster a lot of political will, as a matter of fact, there were even a lot of constituencies, state constituencies really, not federal, that were merged without reason. It’s been the basis of clamour, some have even gone to court and won the cases that they should restore those constituencies."

"For example, a constituency in Benue State and my constituency were even affected. In Tafawa Balewa, we used to have a member representing Bula in the House and Lere, but Bula and Lere were merged, so it’s one of them. INEC has even submitted the report to us that these were the constituencies that were merged and the Supreme Court has said go and demerge them, but up till now it’s not been done.

ALSO READ: Reps to initiate policies to improve conditions of IDPs - Dogara

"Now I understand having had preliminary discussions with the authorities that there may be some kind of reasons because if you now say you are demerging them right now, those who have won elections in those constituencies, it will amount to annulling those elections, they would have to conduct fresh elections in those constituencies. So the commitment is that they may do that, but it would be in the 2019 general elections, they may introduce the elections in those places."

Dogara further said that since 1999, most constituencies have had their population tripled or quadrupled, hence the need for delineation of constituencies.