No rift between Upper chamber, Executive – Senate spokesman
.Says Red chamber has confirmed 185 out 196 nominees from Buhari
.’Senate had good reasons for rejecting some nominees of Mr. President’
.’NASS not under any form of pressure to make its budget public’
. Urges Nigerians to stop condemning NASS, comparing Nigeria with other democracies
Against widespread perception that there is existing antagonism between the Executive and the Senate, Senate spokesman, Senator Aliyu Abdullahi Sabi, has denied such, adding that the rift only exists in the minds of certain people.
He insisted that the Senate has always been supportive of the Buhari administration.
Sabi disclosed that the Senate has so far confirmed 185 out of the 196 nominees from President Muhammadu Buhari.
He added that only 11 nominees were rejected on principle, saying that the development indicates that the Senate has granted 94.4 per cent requests from Buhari.
Sabi stated this during an exclusive interview with the editorial team of The Daily Times in Abuja on Friday.
Insisting that there is a normal relationship between the two arms of government, the Senate spokesman stated however that while the National Assembly has been supportive of the executive in achieving their set agenda, it does so only in such manners that guarantee the sustenance of equity and upholds the rule of law, and their oath of office.
Sabi further explained that the assumption that the Senate was rejecting Buhari’s nominees out of antagonism is false and mischievous, adding that Senate had good reasons for rejecting some nominees of the President.
He said: “The fundamental issue is simply that democracy said these three arms of government, the executive, the legislature and the judiciary must be independent of one another. And in being independent of one another, you must exercise checks and balances. And as the legislature, we must observe the mood of the people we are representing. So if something is wrong, we have to say it is wrong. Anybody can be wrong, if something comes from the President, it may not be wrong?”
Giving examples why some nominees were not confirmed, Sabi explained that the nomination offended the tenets of the Federal character and provisions of the 1999 Constitution (as amended).
On whether the National Assembly was coerced into making its budget public, Sabi said the lawmakers were not under any form of pressure as it has been part of the legislative agenda of the 8th Senate to make reforms in governance.
He said:” We set the idea and the target for ourselves, and it is within that context that the Senate President when asked by the various Civil Society Organisations, said we already had taken a decision to do that but at the right time we are going to make it open.
If we were under pressure, we would have done that last year.”
Senator Sabi also dispelled the belief that Senate stayed action on some Anti-Corruption Bills including the recently passed Mutual Assistance in Criminal matters and other foreign Matters Bill in order to frustrate the fight against corruption by the Buhari administration.
The Bill, according to him, was particularly delayed due to technicalities involved, especially having to do with the sovereignty of Nigeria, besides the fact that such a sensitive bill has to go through a whole process of legislation to become law.
The bill, he explained, involves criminality and as such is not what you can be passed with the eyes closed.
He said: “Like you rightly said, this is one of the Anti-Corruption Bills. I recall last month, I was asked by the media why the Senate is not supportive of the Anti-Corruption fight, and I told them that the subject of Anti-Corruption is complex and interconnected. Any Bill that is being sent to us is not a bill that you can just close your eyes and pass in a hurry because it deals with criminal matters.
“It is worst a tragedy to incarcerate one innocent person when compared to freeing a thousand criminals, it can lead to mayhem beyond your imagination.”
The Senate spokesman further regretted the rumour about the National Assembly budget, stressing that considering its workload and expectations by the public, the institution is being very much underfunded.
“The kind of money the executive is getting, in reality, is many times larger than what both the National Assembly and the judiciary is getting,” he said, adding that out of 100% of the budget, only about five percent goes to both the National Assembly and the Judiciary while the executive gets the remaining 95%.
The Senator advised that it is high time that Nigerians should begin to understand the process and stop condemning the institution, especially making comparison between the country and other democracies that have been established for over 200 years.
Sabi said that with the agenda set by the 8th Senate, Nigeria is already on the right path while leveraging on the mistakes of past National Assemblies who actually worked on meagre resources coming immediately after a military era to build and stabilise the nation’s democracy.
