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Both the Presidency and the Senate, in a show of power, seem to have relegated governance into the back burner while they fight for supremacy; but whether the federal executive council’s decision to reconcile the two will make any impact is anyone’s guess
| By Olu Ojewale | Apr 10, 2017 @ 01:00 GMT |
THE relationship between the Nigerian legislature and the Presidency has been in recent times fraught with a lot of mutual suspicion and confusion to the knowledge of Nigerians and to the world. This has, in turn, made governance strenuous and Nigerians bewildered. Perhaps, irked by the outraged and state of confusion the whole disagreement was causing the populace, the federal has decided to mellow and give peace a chance.
On Wednesday, March 29, the federal executive council, FEC, reportedly set up a committee to resolve outstanding issues between the executive and legislative arms of the government. Lai Mohammed, minister of Information, told reporters after the FEC meeting in Abuja, “The executive is also quite worried and quite concerned that the relationship between the two arms of government is not as smooth as it is supposed to be. In any democracy, it is a continuous struggle for balancing between the executive and the legislature because each of them is creatures of the law.”
“We must strive at all times to ensure that there is that balance, amity and smooth relationship. Just today at the federal executive council meeting, this matter was discussed and a committee is already working on ensuring that we resolve all these outstanding issues,’’ Mohammed said.
Giving an insight into the composition of the committee, Mohammed said it would be chaired by Vice-President Yemi Osinbajo.
He disclosed further that all ministers, who were at a time members of the National Assembly, were members of the committee. They include Chris Ngige, minister of Labour and productivity; Udoma Udoma, minister of Budget and National Planning; Heineken Lokpobiri, minister of state, Agriculture; Hadi Sirika, minister of state for Aviation and Aisha Alhassan, minister of Women Affairs.
Other members are Ita Enang and Samaila Kawu, senior special assistants to the president on National Assembly Matters at the Senate and House of Representatives, respectively.
The committee members met briefly after the FEC meeting at the Vice-President’s office.
Indeed, the rocky relationship between the Presidency and the Senate was further exacerbate on Tuesday, March 28, when the legislators suspended the confirmation of 27 resident electoral commissioners, REC, over what they described as President Muhammadu Buhari’s refusal to sack Ibrahim Magu, acting chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission.
The Senators wondered allow why Buhari should still retain Magu as acting chairman of the EFCC, even after being rejected by the upper house of legislature.
The senators also took offense at comments credited to Itsey Sagay, a professor of law and president’s close aide, who said confirmation by the Senate was just a ‘mere’ duty. But the Senators argued that if the constitution did not deem the confirmation necessary, it would not have stated it out clearly.
Based on the development, senators asked the president to do as he wished with the nominees since he had chosen to flout the laws on Magu.
But Bukola Saraki, Senate president fearing a backlash, pleaded with the senators and urged them to just stand down the confirmation of the appointments for a week until things were sorted out. This was accepted with the assistance of Ike Ekweremadu, deputy Senate president, who also agreed with Saraki.
Eventually, it was resolved to stand down the confirmation for two weeks instead of one proposed by Saraki.
Also on Wednesday, March 29, in furtherance its battle of wits with the Presidency, the Senate summoned Itse Sagay, SAN, chairman, Presidential Advisory Committee against Corruption, for describing the lawmakers’ actions as childish and irresponsible. The Senate at its plenary resolved that Sagay, a professor of law, should appear before the Senate Committee on Ethics, Privileges and Public Petitions, led by Senator Samuel Anyanwu, PDP, Imo East to clear himself of the allegation and explain why he must insult the Senate as an institution.
The Committee was given four weeks to report back to the Senate. The statements credited to Sagay came barely 24 hours after the Senate suspended for two weeks, the screening of 27 persons Buhari nominated for the office of Resident Electoral Commissioners, RECS.
But the law professor said the Senate summon would be an exercise in futility because it lacks such power to summon him. Sagay said: “I am waiting for the Senate summons. In any case, they don’t have the remotest of powers or authority to summon me because their power to summon people is very limited if you look at Section 88 and Section 89 of the constitution.
“I don’t fall under the category of people that they can summon. I am not operating any federal programme to which they have voted money. They are not investigating me based on anything for which they have voted money. So, there is nothing they can do about it.
“I expressed my personal view and if you feel very strongly about it, you can go to court and sue for defamation. That is the best anybody can do but to say I should come before the Senate committee based on an accusation by the same Senate committee which is going to act as a judge in the same case? It will charge me and judge me? It is unconstitutional and illegal.”
Sagay had invoked the wrath of the Senate when he said that Buhari would not be cowed by the Senate’s action which he described as an affront to the Presidency. He said: “That action is childish and irresponsible. Do they think Buhari is a man that can easily be threatened? My God! How can people of such character occupy the highest legislative office in the country? Nigeria is finished. It is a great mistake and they will regret it.”
When asked what appropriate action Buhari could take, Sagay explained that Buhari could continue to appoint people in acting capacity where necessary.
He said the refusal to confirm the RECs was of no effect since officials of the INEC had been acting as RECs for over a year.
He said further: “Where the Senate is required to approve a person for a particular position and they refuse to do it, the person could continue to act depending on the nature of the appointment.
“However, if the nominee is coming from another sector, just like in the case of the RECs, it means they cannot act. However, people below that rank in the INEC can continue to act as RECs all over the country as it has been done.
“What this action means is that the Senate is being occupied by the most unserious set of Nigerians in history. Nigeria is currently at its lowest level because we have people who have no sense of responsibility, who have no feeling and are there for just vanity and are ready to bring down the country in order to feel important, it is the worst case of abuse ever.
“Let them do what they want, they will regret it.”
Similarly, Chijioke Okoli, a former chairman, Lagos Branch of the Nigerian Bar Association, said the decision by the Senate amounted to a blackmail of the Presidency.
“When they now say that they would not do something except certain things are done amounts to blackmail and straying into judicial function,” Okoli told one of our correspondents on the telephone on Tuesday.
Okoli stated that the refusal to screen the RECs except the president sacked the Magu constituted an act of legislative impertinence. Okoli said: “I will say that the Senate, with all due sense of responsibility and as a senior member of the bar and a leader in the community that the Senate is making itself, wittingly or otherwise, a cog in the wheel of our democratic process.
“Their (members) conduct, especially in this 8th Senate, by and large, especially in the last few months, does not suggest the presence of sagacity and wisdom that ordinarily should be expected from a legislative chamber that is historically supposed to be comprised by very wise persons.
“There has been a disturbing lack of restraint in the use of their powers. Even if we say lawyers in the Senate are not in practice, they can, at best, if they so wish, provide guidance.
“For the Senate to come out openly to tell the President that he must sack Magu, for me, is legislative impertinence. In my own view, they have done their duties, rightly or wrongly, whether or not to confirm Magu, it does not lie with them to tell the President who to sack or not to sack.
“The only power recognised by the constitution to make such definitive pronouncement would be the court of law.
“In one moment, they move from their position as legislators to the realm of the judiciary and also somersault their way into the domain of executive powers.”
Femi Falana, SAN, and human rights lawyer, said calling for Magu’s sack was wrong. He said the Senate, relying on the powers conferred on it under Section 3 (2) of the EFCC Act, 2004, refused to confirm Magu’s appointment as the agency’s substantive chairman.
He said: “The decision of the president cannot be faulted by virtue of section 171 (1) (d) of the Constitution which provides that the president is vested with the power to appoint the head of any extra ministerial department to hold office in an acting capacity. Such appointment does not require the confirmation of the Senate.
“Completely aggrieved by the decision of the President to exercise his constitutional powers in the circumstance the Senate has decided not to confirm the 27 newly appointed Resident Electoral Commissioners until Mr. Magu has been removed from office as EFCC chairman. In asking for the removal of Mr. Magu the Senate said that the anti graft czar has been terrorising the Senate. Should the Senate resort to such cheap blackmail because the embattled EFCC helmsman has refused to compromise the prosecution and investigation of about 15 senators alleged to have been involved in serious economic and financial crimes? Why should the Senate President, Dr. Bukola Saraki not be terrorised for the criminal diversion of N3.5 billion from the London/Paris Club loan refund?
“Before now, sharp disagreements between the National Assembly and the Executive had been submitted to the courts for judicial resolution in line with the rule of law. At the twilight of the Goodluck Jonathan administration, the Attorney-General of the Federation challenged the purported amendment of the Constitution at the Supreme Court. Based on the interlocutory injunction granted by the Supreme Court, the National Assembly suspended further deliberations on the amendment of the Constitution. Instead of following the path of rule of law and constitutionalism, the Senate has completely thrown caution to the winds.”
Holding a similar view, Lauretta Onochie, personal assistant to the president on Social Media, could as well have stoked the conflict when she chided the senators on Wednesday 29, over their current rift with the executive, saying they had turned themselves into blackmailers. Onochie said the federal lawmakers had turned themselves into what she called a self-serving trade union that work with blackmail.
She posted the information on her Facebook page as her reaction to the executive and legislative face off over Buhari’s refusal to implement some of the resolutions made by the Senate.
A commentator who simply gave his name as Jasper said Buhari should have himself to blame for all the crisis rocking his government. He alleged that it was Buhari’s plan to “curtail” powers of Ahmed Tinubu, a former governor of Lagos State and leader of All Progressives Congress, APC, which backfired, when he allowed Saraki to install himself as Senate president.
“A smart person should have ensured his own candidates head both legislative chambers, even it means brushing Tinubu’s candidates aside.
“A dysfunctional democracy like Nigeria’s confers absolute power on the Executive arm. Buhari does not know how to use this power, and that’s why Saraki is kicking him around,” he said.
The Magu case is not the only that has brought the Presidency and the Senate to a collision course. Based on a controversial policy in which Nigerian Customs Service, NSC, said Nigerians should pay import duties on their old vehicles plying Nigerian roads, the Senate summoned Hameed Ibrahim Ali, a retired colonel and comptroller-general, to appear before it in uniform.
First, Ali made it categorically known that he would not appear in uniform. By the same token, it was alleged that the Senate and Bukola Saraki, its President, were merely interested in humiliating Ali because the NCS had impounded an SUV car imported by the Senate which allegedly paid duty illegally discounted duty with fake documents to NCS.
While it was eventually resolved that payment of duty on the N298 million car, was the responsibility of the importer, it also showed the insensitivity of Nigerian legislators, who spend extravagantly at a time of recession and in a country where millions of people go to bed hungry. Sadly, that did not seem to bother the Senate which was bent on exert its authority to compel Ali to wear uniform.
The power struggle was given an impetus by Abubakar Malami, SAN, attorney general and minister of Justice, in a letter to Nelson Ayewoh, clerk of the Senate, saying that Ali would not come in complete uniform because someone had gone to court to challenge the process. According to the letter, Malami asked the Senate to hands off the matter against the backdrop that they were already in court to challenge it whether the Senate has the powers to oversight the Customs comptroller general as well as have the right to compel him to wear uniforms.
In the letter, Malami was quoted as saying that there was no way the Senate could force Ali to wear uniforms when President Muhammadu Buhari does not wear military uniform as Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces. He was said to have accused Saraki of not wearing his complete legislative regalia in line with legislative conventions.
Ali had appeared before the Senate on Tuesday, March 14, but he was not given audience. Instead, he was directed to return to the National Assembly on Wednesday, March 22, in proper uniform designated for the office of comptroller-general of the Nigerian Customs Service. That, he failed to oblige.
But reacting to the development, the Senate said that no court of law could stop it from carrying out its responsibilities in line with the constitution and the Senate Standing Orders 2015, as amended.
Similarly, the House of Representatives Committee on Basic Education also summoned Adamu Adamu, minister of Education, to explain why Jamila Shuara, permanent secretary of his ministry, refused to appear before the House of over her extension of service.
The Senate had also taken an exception to a similar disobedience by Babachir Lawal, secretary to the government of the federation, when he was being investigated for his alleged complicity in the alleged misappropriation of funds meant for the internally displaced persons, IDPs, camps in the North East. Consequently, the Senate called on Buhari to remove him from office. But the president argued that Lawal was not given a fair hearing. A new date has been agreed on when he would appear before the Senate.
A senator who does not want his name in print allegedly identified five conditions for peace between the executive and the legislative arm of government to prevail.
According to him, the first condition for peace between the two arms is for the trial of Saraki to be discontinued forthwith. “The trial of Saraki is central to the crisis because it is believed that they came up with it because he ‘violated’ the interest of the Presidency and the party (APC) to emerge the Senate president. If his trial is stopped, there would be peace,’’ he said.
Besides, he said that irrespective of the peace move by the executive, the camps within the Presidency must be united, otherwise they would continue to use the Senate against each other.
“A camp in the Presidency is using the Senate against another. This is the second issue that must be addressed for peace to reign. Buhari should dissolve the camp, otherwise no serious progress would be made,” he said.
He also said, the head of government agencies including ministers must be made to respect Senate resolutions. “If a resolution is passed, the executive doesn’t respect it, there is general contempt against us. This must stop,” he said.
In addition, the senator said there was urgent need for the president to engage the leadership of the APC for proper coordination of the party’s caucus at the senate. “The president must be talking to the party for it to be talking to caucus. If the president is bringing anything to the senate, the party should be involved,” he said.
According to the senator, there must be personal communication between the senators and the president.
But senators are not the only ones aggrieved. A member of the House of Representatives was similarly quoted as being unhappy with the Presidency.
He said: “Frankly speaking, there are issues with both chambers. Yes, that of the Senate may be pronounced, but there are issues with the House as well. How can you increase the budget of the judiciary by N30bn without increasing that of the legislature? The lawmakers are not happy with this.
“Again, the president doesn’t see them as anything. He treats them with disdain, and it’s the fault of his aides. He doesn’t meet lawmakers privately to discuss issues, which wasn’t the case in the past. They’re only managing to work with him.
“There were instances that the president would travel to a place with the Senate president and the speaker, but he would be distanced from meeting the National Assembly leaders. All these things may be small, but they’re important as far as their relationship is concerned. The House is only managing the relationship, while that of the Senate seems to go out of hand.
“As I speak with you, there are lawmakers that are not principal officers, but they have unfettered access to the Villa, while principal officers don’t. If anything comes up, those lawmakers that are just committee chairmen can’t do anything to defend the president.
“For me, the way out is for the president to open up and make himself accessible to the lawmakers. He should know that it’s not a one-man show. He should respect them the way they respect him,” the source said.
But another lawmaker said there are no serious issues between the House and the Presidency but that the attitude of some heads of government agencies toward the lower chamber was unbecoming.
“There are no real issues that one can say are pronounced. The issues we have mostly have to do with heads of agencies. Sometime when we invite them, they don’t want to appear until we now summon them.
“As a parliament, we have powers to invite anybody to appear before us on an issue, but they give flimsy excuses here and there. That notwithstanding, we don’t have issues with the presidency currently.
“The real issues are in the Senate. In fact, at some point, the speaker was trying to mediate between the Senate and the presidency, that’s to tell you we don’t have issues with them. May be the Presidency sensed that the suspension of (Ali) Ndume may lead to other things, that is why they quickly swung into action,” the lawmaker said.
Femi Otubanjo, a professor of Political Science, said that the ruling All Progressives Congress, APC, must mediate in the current face-off between the Senate and the Presidency for peace to rein. Otubanjo, who works with the National Open University of Nigeria, said the APC would need to ensure that the process of governance in the country is not thwarted by the face-off.
The don said that the APC should not allow the face-off to adversely affect governance. “There is a ruling political party and fortunately, the majority of the people in the National Assembly are APC members including the president, and the federal government is APC government too.
“There ought to be a platform for discussing and reconciling whatever proposal or nomination the executive is bringing to the legislature for approval. We saw President Trump when he was trying to repeal the Obamacare, he called his party members in the parliament to a breakfast table to discuss his proposal, though, it did not work, but that is how things are done. The party leaders have a role to play to ensure smooth working relationship between the Senate and the Presidency.
“The party leaders should initiate mediation by calling their members in the Senate and the Presidency to a round table to talk and settle their disagreement. By doing so, they will be able to succeed and smoothly deliver their campaign promises to the people,” he said.
Monday Oyekachi Ubani, second national president of the Nigerian Bar Association, NBA, said it was time for President Buhari to play politics in order for all his electoral promises to be fulfilled. He said if there was no peace all the APC campaign promises would not be realised. “The president has already made a mistake by refusing to show interest in the persons who lead the National Assembly. But now, he should know better that for his government to make positive impact, he must lobby the National Assembly and not rely only on his power as president of the nation,” Ubani said.
The lawyer said that both the executive and the legislative should be mindfull of the fact that budget is yet to be passed while majority are also suffering economic hardships on various fronts. “What Nigerians need right now is not in-fighting. We need governance as a lot of Nigerians are suffering; food is costly; there is no light, no water and things are very expensive in the market. So, we don’t need all this personal aggrandisement. Government should wake up and fulfil its promises to the masses,” he said.
Well said, but whether the Presidency and the Senate would be mindful all the need to get the nation back on track and jettison their power struggle is anybody’s guess. But in the time being, the outcome of the peace moves would determine whether the Buhari is ready to play politics or not.
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The current Nigerian Senate is a big disgrace to Nigeria and Africa. Their performance is very shameful and anti-democracy. The institution should be abolished ASAP. It’s full of rogues and kleptocrats.