Stung by its own moral deficit arising from the conduct of some of its leading lights, the House of Representatives seeks to recover lost grounds with a tackle on President Goodluck Jonathan over his own deficiencies in the execution of the budget.
LAST Thursday’s threat to commence impeachment proceedings against the President was the climax of the simmering discontent among the law-makers over what they consider an insensitive presidency. The threat of impeachment as spearheaded by the Minority Leader, Femi Gbajabiamilla has inevitably set the stage for a dogfight between the House and the Presidency.
The looming confrontation between the presidency and the House began as a cold war. Indeed, the cat and mouse relationship between the law-makers and the executive has lingered since the inception of the 7th session of the House in June last year when Rep. Aminu Tambuwal emerged as Speaker contrary to the arrangement approved by the ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).
Nevertheless, what has been seen all along as a low-intensity political warfare suddenly escalated last Thursday when the House decided to hold a plenary session on the implementation of the 2012 budget. The day’s plenary session seemed to have been pre-arranged as it was well-attended by members. The debate was led by Hon. Sam Tsokwa (PDP Taraba), Chairman of the House Committee on Rules and Business.
After he spoke, the Speaker called on the Chairman of the Appropriation Committee of the House Hon. John Eno to brief the law-makers on the details of the budget as was passed by the House.
Revenue projections
Next to be called upon were the Chairmen of the Committees on Finance, Customs, Petroleum Upstream and Gas. All of them were unanimous in their verdict that the nation had not only met its revenue projections for the period under review, but surpassed same in several cases.
However, the mood of the House became charged when Chairmen of committees dubbed as “Spending Committees” were called upon to address the House. After the Chairmen of Committees on Works, Health and MDGs had spoken, there was palpable anger in the Green Chamber.
One or two of the Committee Chairmen actually stoked the flames when they alleged that civil servants had been directed by the Executive to ignore the budget as was passed by the National Assembly and instead implement the proposal as was presented by the various MDAs.
Few days before the debate on the budget, the House had discussed the poor condition of the East-West Road passing through the Niger Delta. The bad road was indirectly blamed for the petrol tanker accident that claimed more than 150 lives penultimate week.
The House had urged the Federal Government to quickly complete the road which is currently under construction to avoid further loss of lives.
This notwithstanding, the stage was set in the House for the missile that was fired at the executive later that Thursday with the Presidency’s reinstatement of Ms Arunma Oteh, as Director-General of Securities Exchange Commission, SEC, – an action many of the law-makers considered as an affront on the lower chamber.
The House Ad-hoc Committee on the Near Collapse of the Capital Market had recommended the sack and prosecution of Oteh in its report which was laid before the House the previous Tuesday. In addition to all these, the House had in the last two months sent very strong signals about the law-makers’ displeasure with the conduct of government business by the executive.
For instance at the end of its first legislative year last month, the Committee on Rules and Business had condemned the President’s tendency to delay assent to bills passed by the National Assembly.
Over riding the president
Tsokwa, who chairs the Committee had told newsmen at a briefing that the House would go ahead and over-ride the President in the following legislative year if the situation persisted. The row over the twin issues of delay in the President’s assent to bills and non-implementation of the 2012 budget actually became public last May 29, during Democracy Day celebration.
Speaker Tambuwal, had fired the first salvo when he said President Jonathan’s refusal to implement the budget in full and sign important bills passed by the National Assembly were inimical to democracy in the country. In response, Jonathan had argued that the budget as passed by the National Assembly could not be executed by him. He accused the legislators of padding the budget without recourse to the fundamentals and benchmarks set for the budget.
Again, the President seemed to have incurred the law-makers wrath since he seemed to have ignored their summons to appear before them with the service chiefs to brief them about what the administration was doing about the high level of insecurity in the northern part of the country.
Terrorist attacks
The invitation was served on the President after terrorist attacks on several churches in Kaduna State and the retaliatory attacks that spurred further retaliation. In a seeming plot to get at Jonathan, the House decided to raise germane questions on national security, drawing inspiration from the Constitution, which confers it powers to summon any person in Nigeria to appear before it. Jonathan has remained adamant to the House summons on the deteriorating insecurity in the country.
Before now, not a few had considered the House of Reps probe of N1.7trn fraud in the management of fuel subsidy, much of which perpetrated in 2011, as a covert indictment of the administration. President Jonathan has dilly-dallied on the implementation of findings of the report, which required those indicted be prosecuted.
However, the $620,000 bribery that involved the chairman of the House ad hoc panel that investigated the fuel scam, Mr. Farouk Lawan, further fanned the embers of discord between the two arms of government.
The House had accused the presidency of masterminding the plot as a way of distabilising the leadership. But the presidency swiftly denied the charge. For now it remains uncertain how the rift between the House and the Presidency would be resolved.
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