APC senators defy party's directive, screen new service chiefs
The All Progressives Congress (APC) has failed in its first test of its numerical advantage at the Senate as the party's lawmakers defied its directive participated in the screening of new service chiefs.
The names of the newly appointed service chiefs were sent to the National Assembly last week for screening and confirmation.
They are: Air Marshal Alex Badeh (Chief of Defence Staff), Major-Gen. Kenneth Tobiah Minimah (Chief of Army Staff), Rear Admiral Usman Jibrin (Chief of Naval Staff and Air Vice Marshal Adesola Nunayon Amosu (Chief of Air Staff).
The Senate joint committee, which conducted the screening presided over by the chairman of the Senate Committee on Defence and Army, George Sekibo, had no fewer that nine APC senators in attendance.
They are senators Femi Ojodu (Ekiti State), Akin Odusi (Ogun), Kabiru Marafa (Zamfara State), Sani Saleh (Kaduna), Attai Aidoko (Kogi), Jibrilla Mohammed Bindowo (Adamawa), Garba Lado (Kano) and Boroffice Robert Ajayi (Ondo).
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.
In a remark at the commencement of the screening, Sekibo stated that the exercise was in fulfillment of the provisions of the constitution and the Armed Forces Act 2004, which he noted had been flouted since it was enacted.
He said, '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.' 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. Lagos State Governor, Babatunde Fashola, 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'.
Fashola, who spoke yesterday shortly after the handing over of the Ejigbo-Ajao Link Road and the 12th anniversary of January 27, 2002 Ikeja bomb blasts, added that such legislative action was necessary to ensure true separation of powers.
He added: 'Let me say without any shadow of doubt that in the case of the three arms of government, the theory of separation of power propounded many years ago recognises the need for every arms of government; the executive, legislature and judiciary, to act as a check on each other. So, in the process of that check, institutionally and traditionally, the legislature has found as a legitimate weapon the withdrawal of co-operation the executive enjoys in order to bring a belligerent executive back to the negotiation table. As they say themselves, nobody can claim ownership of Nigeria and therefore when appeals and letters fail, the legitimate tool is the use of the power of cooperation and the withdrawal of cooperation.'
Fashola, while urging that the legislators should be allowed to do their constitutionally assigned job, noted that even where the party in power was in majority, there were still checks and balances, which the parliament still employs.
He added: 'For example, we now have a PIB bill in the National Assembly and it was initiated by the majority party (PDP), have you then asked yourself why up till now it has not been passed. The same party in the majority also returned the budget and we know how the budget finally came back to the National Assembly, that was an example of withdrawal of legislative cooperation. The same party with the majority last year said it was not going to approve appropriation for the Securities and Exchange Commission, a constitutionally empowered body because there was disagreement with its leadership. I did not hear this loud noise at that time from the PDP.
'So, how can the withdrawal of support suddenly amount now to truncating democracy. If investors are withdrawing from our oil sector because we haven't passed the bill and that is the truth. Our oil assets are being sold off by traditional investors who have been here between 40 to 50 years. And therefore, the capacity to fund the budget will become one of very high questionability as we go forward. But who is really endangering the budget? It is interesting now that they think this amount to a threat to democracy, it is not. The withdrawal of support by parliamentary representative from the executive does not in any way threaten democracy.'
He added that instead of resorting to violence, 'the lawmakers are employing a legitimate tool to check abuses by the executive; they are rather saying, let us talk, we must have a negotiated compromise in order to go forward. If you close that, then you are threading the expressway to anarchy, it is a legitimate tool.'