The Senate has mandated its Committee on Judiciary, Human Rights and Legal Matters to interface with the Office of the Attorney General of the Federation to initiate the process of revising the Laws of the Federation of Nigeria (LFN) 2004.
The resolution was sequel to a motion by Senator representing Borno Central, Kaka Shehu Lawan.
Checks revealed that the Laws of the Federation of Nigeria (LFN) compiled alphabetically was carried out under the authority of the Attorney General of the Federation, subject to the approval of the National Assembly through an Act.
Senator Lawan said the statutes in the LFN were enacted in different years before and after Nigeria’s independence even though they were all cited as “LFN 2004”.
He presented in his motion that the LFN has remained unrevised for almost twenty years with the implication that the several laws enacted in Nigeria from 1 January 2003 till date remain excluded from the compilation.
The APC Senator recalled that there was a futile effort to revise the LFN in 2010.
He also expressed concern that the continued non-revision of LFN has not only left numerous statutes out of the compilation but also retained many repealed statutes with attendant confusion and other negative impacts.
According to him, the non-compilation of the several federal statutes leads to a dearth of knowledge of many existing laws on the part of Nigerians, especially students, lecturers, researchers, lawyers, legislators, and judges among others.
He said the revision of LFN was long overdue and as such will be in the interest of democratic governance in Nigeria to commence the revision process without further delay.