Seven senators on the platform of the All Progressives Congress (APC) Monday January 28th 2014 may have ignored the order by their party asking them to block the screening of service chiefs recently appointed by President Goodluck Jonathan by fully participating in the screening exercise.
APC had in a communique issued at the end of its National Executive Council (NEC) meeting in Abuja last Thursday directed its members in the National Assembly to frustrate the passage of the 2014 budget as well as the screening and confirmation of service chiefs and ministerial nominees.
The directive has however generated wide reactions from the general public, which described it as anti-people, unpatriotic and undemocratic.
However, Lagos State Governor Babatunde Fashola threw his weight behind the directive of APC, stating that as an instrument, it would bring a “belligerent executive back to the negotiation table”.
But in the House of Representatives, the schism within the lower chamber came to the fore yesterday, as 60 legislators not belonging to the APC kicked against the call by the party on its members to obstruct the passage of the 2014 budget and confirm ministerial nominees as well as the service chiefs.
Irrespective, some senators including Deputy Senate President Ike Ekweremadu, Senate Leader Ndoma-Egba and Kabir Marafa, who spoke with THISDAY at the weekend had dismissed the directive with the wave of the hand, saying the Senate as currently constituted usually promotes the national interest above any party’s parochial directive.
Their statement was confirmed yesterday when seven APC senators who are members of the Joint Senate Committee on Defence, Army, Navy and Air Force fully participated in the screening exercise.
The senators were Akin Odunsi (Ogun West), Kabir Marafa (Zamfara Central), Sani Saleh (Kaduna Central), Atai Aidoko Ali (Kogi East), Babafemi Ojudu (Ekiti Central), Bindowo Jubrilla (Adamawa North) and Ajayi Boroffice (Ondo North).
At the opening session of the exercise, chairman of the joint committee, Senator George Sekibo, was excited, noting that the screening was the first to be carried out by the Senate since 1999 when Nigeria returned to civil rule.
According to him, successive administrations had ignored Sections 217 to 219 of the 1999 Constitution as well as Armed Forces Act 2004, which he said placed the responsibility of confirming the appointment of service chiefs on the shoulders of the National Assembly.
“The screening exercise today therefore is in fulfillment of the provisions of the constitution and the Armed Forces Act 2004 (Cap A.20 of the laws of the Federal Republic of Nigeria) which have been flouted since it was enacted.
“This exercise we are performing today would satisfy the provisions of the constitution and the law and completely put our Armed Forces under our democratic norms,” he said.
Sekibo also regretted the major security challenges facing the country such as the insurgency in the North-east, oil theft and pipeline vandalism in the South-south as well as kidnapping in South-east and other parts of the country. He also emphasised the need to pay due attention to this menace.
“If the required attention is not given to these challenges, they are capable of disintegrating our country or putting our nation’s unity into question. It is the wish of the Senate and indeed the entire nation that no part of this country should be allowed to exist in lawlessness and every part of the country must be fully protected, as that is one of the primary objectives of a good government.
“The oil theft and vandalism of pipelines in the South-south region is a major economic breach with the resultant effect of reducing national earnings from the oil and gas sector and this must be stopped,” he said.
Sekibo stressed that the committee would screen the military service chiefs on their competence in strategic military operations.
After his remarks, the committee dissolved into a closed-door session for the screening exercise and will make its report available to the entire Senate for ratification at the conclusion of the exercise.
The involvement of the APC senators in the screening of the service chiefs notwithstanding, Fashola yesterday expressed concern over the outrage currently trailing the directive of his party to its National Assembly members to block all executive bills, stating that it would help “to bring a belligerent executive back to the negotiation table”.
The governor also asked the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and its leaders “to stop raising needless alarm” over APC’s directive, and cited instances of previous blockage of executive bills in the National Assembly at a time the ruling party was in the majority of the two legislative chambers.
Fashola said this during an interview with State House correspondents after commissioning Ajao-Ejigbo Link Bridge in Lagos, where he faulted PDP’s position, adding that the directive to block executive bills by the opposition party was to forestall violence and prevent anarchy in the country.
“Rather than resort to violence, APC is resorting to a legislative tool to bring the executive back on the table to say let us talk. We must have a negotiated compromise in order to go forward.
“If you close that avenue, you are setting the expressway to anarchy. It is a legitimate tool. The Americans have used it. The British have used it.
“When it suited them in the absence of any evidence to the contrary, they told their government to invade Iraq. When it did not suit them in the spirit of non-cooperation to the government of the day, which was a coalition, they said you can’t go to Syria. We must open our minds and stop raising needless alarm.
“Now, perhaps, the PDP is no longer able to stomach the medicine it has dished to people over the years. But I have news for them: there is a stone for every Goliath. And this is one stone that we have found,” the governor said.
He argued that the three arms of government in the theory of separation of powers propounded many years by great philosophers recognised the need for the executive, the legislature and the judiciary to act as checks on one another.
“So in the process of these checks, institutionally and traditionally, the legislature has been found, as a legitimate weapon. That is the withdrawal of cooperation from the executive in order to bring a belligerent executive back on the negotiation table. As they said themselves, no person can claim the ownership of Nigeria.
“Where appeals and letters failed, a legitimate tool is the use of the power of cooperation or the withdrawal of cooperation… How that will take place is yet another thing. Let me say even where party in power has full legislative majority, this has been a power that the parliament has employed,” he explained.
The governor cited the Petroleum Industry Bill (PIB), which he said had been in the National Assembly for more than three years, explaining that being “a party in the majority, have you asked yourselves why it has not been passed?
“So that was an example of the withdrawal of cooperation. The same party in the majority returned the 2013 budget. We know the budget finally came back to the National Assembly. That was another example of the withdrawal of cooperation.
“The same party in the majority said it would not approve the budget for the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), a constitutionally created and empowered body because they were disagreeable with its leadership.
“I did not hear a very loud voice at that time from the PDP. So how can the withdrawal of support suddenly amount to truncating democracy now? Investors are withdrawing from the oil sector because we have not passed the PIB.
“Oil assets are being sold off by traditional investors who have been here for more than 50 years. And therefore, the capacity to even fund the budget will become an issue of high questionability as we go forward. So who is really endangering the budget?
“It is interesting now but does this amount to a threat to democracy? No it does not. The withdrawal of support by the parliamentary representatives from the executive does not in any way threaten democracy. The lawmakers have raised their voices at a time they have no alternative.”
Meanwhile, in the House of Representatives, the division within the lower chamber became very stark yesterday, when some non-APC legislators kicked against the call by the party on its members to obstruct the passage of the 2014 budget and confirmation of ministerial nominees as well as the service chiefs.
