The Osun State chapter of the All Progressives Congress (APC) has rejected the newly passed Integrated Transport, Traffic and Park Management System Bill by the state House of Assembly, describing it as unconstitutional and “dead on arrival.”
The party, in a statement signed on Thursday by its Director of Media and Information, Kola Olabisi, said the state lacked the constitutional authority to take over the regulation and management of motor parks across the state.
The Osun State House of Assembly had on Wednesday announced the passage of the bill, sponsored by the Chairman of the House Committee on Works and Transport, which seeks to establish an integrated system for the registration, regulation, management, and digital administration of commercial transport, traffic, motor parks, terminals, garages, loading points, and related infrastructure.
According to the Assembly, the proposed system would introduce digitized ticketing aimed at eliminating multiple ticketing in motor parks, reducing the financial burden on transport operators, improving transparency, and enhancing the efficiency of revenue collection by the state government.
However, the APC argued that the legislation would conflict with Section 7(1) of the 1999 Constitution, as amended, which recognizes democratically elected local government councils and provides for their functions, including the administration and collection of revenue from public motor parks.
The APC urged members of the House of Assembly not to become instruments in the enactment of what it described as an unenforceable law capable of creating tension in the state.
According to the APC, “We won’t fail to impress it on Governor Ademola Adeleke that his administration could not now access or achieve the illegality through his obnoxious and repugnant Motor Parks Management Bill that was initially proposed by the invocation of an executive order, which he retreated from following our resistance to such official governmental anomaly.”
“Such a bill, if eventually passed into law, would be at variance with certain provisions of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria 1999, as amended, specifically Section 7(1), which assigns direct administration and revenue collection of public motor parks to democratically elected local government councils across the country rather than the federal or state government.”
“The state lawmakers are hereby reminded that there is no point in becoming an instrument to the birth of a law that is not enforceable, as it is a glaring recipe for the disturbance of public peace in the state, apart from the fact that it is at variance with the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria 1999, as amended.”
“We are of the opinion that the duty of the state House of Assembly, if truly it is interested in the smooth governance of the state under Governor Adeleke, is to embark on making productive and legal laws that are not meant to create avoidable crises for the incumbent governor and his government.”
“In our own view, as an important stakeholder in the Osun State project, we consider the immediate withdrawal of the bill by the state lawmakers as the most honorable and dignifying action to be taken in the overall interest of corporate peace in our state.”
“Before we are taken to Golgotha by cynics, it is important to emphasize the fact that though state governors sometimes intervene or attempt to manage parks or transport unions like the NURTW for security or administrative reasons, various court rulings in Nigeria have repeatedly declared direct state takeovers or the appointment of park managers as an unconstitutional infringement on local government powers.”
“It is trite law under the Nigerian Constitution of 1999, as amended, that when any of the provisions of the Constitution clashes with a state law, that of the Constitution takes precedence. This is the reason the Osun State House of Assembly should, without further delay, beat a retreat from promulgating a law in conflict with the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria 1999, as amended,” it added.