The ongoing debate about the current face-off between the Senate and some agencies of the executive arm of government is leaving out something crucial – the importance of the principle of separation of powers. Olawale Olaleye writes
In many ways than one, the current debate has called to question some of the fundamental responsibilities of the Senate, beyond the rudimentary lawmaking. It has also queried, albeit inadvertently, the interventions of the eighth senate in the Nigerian project and this is quite significant because power is now with a coalition of opposition elements, who sold change as alternative to PDP’s alleged misrule and got away with their mind-bending narratives.It is unfortunate that the Senate and some agencies of the federal government have had to slug it out over basic issues of constitutionality. Although the development has come to somewhat redefine before the observing public, what is now known as a deteriorating relationship between the executive and the legislature, it is pertinent to state that the current standoff has not in any way enlisted the presidency as an entity. This is why the recent intervention by President Muhammadu Buhari to resolve the impasse has been deemed timely and instructive.
The world over, the legislature and the executive have always had a testy cat and mouse kind of relationship, because there are always issues to cause disagreement and muscle-flexing. But the concept of separation of powers was designed to achieve that.
Baron de Montesquieu, who articulated the need for the three arms of government to be separated with distinct functions, only envisaged that their works could be complementary, not for them to be in a chummy, buddy relationship.
That, perhaps, explains why the corollary to the principle of Separation of Powers is the concept of checks and balances – that each organ or arms government should checkmate the other. They should check the excesses of one another. Thus, when one makes laws, the other one executes them and the third interprets the laws. There is a clear division of functions and that is why each of them jealously guides its own turf and ensures no one encroaches thereof.
In actual fact, when these arms of government become too close and constantly in agreement, it becomes a cause for worry for any ideal democrat, because a gang-up against the people might have been forged for secluded and parochial interests. Yet, their distinguishing functions and responsibilities do not call for needless hostility or disagreement at collective expense.
It is against this backdrop that any objective observer should interpret or view the recent disagreement between these agencies of government and the National Assembly, the Senate to be precise. It is also in the interest of democracy that such disagreement, for as long as it is not consciously coloured, should be encouraged. It is good to test the development of the nation’s critical institutions and help to entrench the laws, conventions and ethos. Therefore, nothing appears bad or unusual about the current disagreement.
Suffice it to say that the present crisis emanated from the perception by the legislature that some members of the executive were deliberately treating the actions, laws and pronouncements of the National Assembly as jokes that could either be obeyed or ignored at the discretion of the executive.
Unfortunately, while the disagreement has been made worse by the actions and utterances of some presidential appointees, who publicly pour invectives on the legislature without as much analysing the weight of their utterances, the issue of ego and protection of territory is daily generating heat in an environment, where the people are not used to that kind of exchange and in a society already laid prostate by economic recession.
For the record, this current face-off started with the decision by the Senate not to confirm the nominee for the chairmanship of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), Mr. Ibrahim Magu. The Magu nomination has not only divided the presidency itself, it has equally caused division among members of the public. So, while some upbraid the Senate for rejecting Magu as EFCC chair, others praised it for being thorough with the process.
In the presidency, for example, Magu is seen as the candidate of a group led by Vice-President Yemi Osinbajo and it is believed there may be some future political calculation linked to a popular political figure in South-west by that simple stroke. If you recall, the two times that the name of Magu was sent to the Senate for confirmation was during the time that Osinbajo served as acting president. The question is: why hasn’t Buhari sent it himself?
Yet, there is another camp in the presidency that believes Magu’s nomination should be shot down because those promoting it have their own agenda, which may be political. That is why the Department of State Security (DSS), which is another agency in the presidency, wrote a damaging report supported by valid documents to further disqualify Magu’s nomination as lacking the requisite credibility to lead the fight against graft.
Unfortunately, the Senate is caught in this power game between the two camps in the presidency, because the pro-Magu elements are interpreting his rejection as a declaration of war by the Senate against the executive, a far cry from the truth and reality of the politics that dogs the scenario.
However, while Magu’s issue was still pending, the Comptroller-General of the Customs, Col. Hameed Ali, came in with the policy to start stopping motorists on the road and asking them to produce genuine import duty payment documents. This is without doubt, an anti-people policy, which to an extent exposes the inefficiency of the agency.
When the Senate got wind of this, it invited him to come and explain the rationale behind that policy. But Ali treated the invitation with disdain by going to the media to announce that he would not honour the invitation and that there was no going back on the policy. He later wrote the Senate to say he had a management meeting on the day he was scheduled to appear. That infuriated the legislators, who then added that he should appear in uniform.
When President Buhari interfered and warned Ali and other aides to stop creating unnecessary tension, Ali allegedly reached out to the Senate leader, Ahmed Lawan, who allegedly took him to Saraki to apologise. The two agreed that Senate should give him a new date and that he would issue a press statement to suspend the car import duty policy.
After the Senate kept their own side of the agreement, Ali grudgingly issued a statement the following day, stating that “following unnecessary tension generated by….” and that even though the Customs had the right under the law to initiate such policy, he was suspending the implementation to enable him properly engage the Senate on the issue. The lawmakers saw the statement as no less insulting, especially after peace had been brokered at that level. They then insisted that Ali must appear before it and must stop the policy totally.
In the heat of this, a case was filed at a court by a lawyer challenging the Senate’s request that Ali appears before it in uniform. Though the case has not been assigned to any judge, the Attorney General later wrote to the Senate to advise it to hold all actions on the invitation. The implication of the AG’s letter is that the government would not comply with any action recommended against Ali by the Senate. Today, there is a resolution of the highest legislative body in the country that Ali is not fit to occupy any public office in the land.
Two days after that exchange, Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF), Mr. Babachir Lawal, who had been invited by the Senate over the indiscriminate, fraudulent and illegal award of contracts by the Presidential Initiative on North East (PINE) also went to court and used the mere serving of court processes to evade appearance.
The decision by the presidency to continue to retain Magu as EFCC chair, even though his nomination had been rejected, is being viewed as an illegality and the fact that the executive is treating the legislative decision with contempt, which further exacerbated the crisis. Worse still, there were presidential appointees like Itse Sagay and Buhari’s PA on New Media, Bashir Ahmad, who have continued to verbally assault the legislature.
The presidency, however, got a joker, when the Senate decided to stand down the screening of Resident Electoral Commissioners (RECs) nominated by the president until it starts respecting legislative decisions, resolutions and invitations.
Expectedly, that decision was a rude awakening for the presidency. It forced it to set-up a committee under the headship of Osinbajo to look into how to improve executive-legislature rapport. The committee includes all members of the Federal Executive Council (FEC), who have had a stint in the legislature. The Senate has also described the initiative as a welcome development and promised to co-operate with the committee to clear all grey areas. And with this, it looks like there is already a way out of the crisis, moving forward.
Interestingly, for the Senate, the disagreement has not slowed it down in any way. On Thursday, for instance, it passed a new INEC bill with several new initiatives like the electronic voting and the use of the card reader. It also passed the Diaspora Commission Establishment law.
The joint leadership of the two bodies also met on Wednesday night to finalise the strategy for expediting the pace of work on the 2017 budget. As a result, all committees were given till last Friday to submit their reports to the appropriation committee in both chambers otherwise the proposals from the executive would be adopted as sent.
Also, the Senate has set April 25 as the date for submission of reports on the Petroleum Industry Governance Bill. What this means is that the all-important bill may be passed before the second anniversary of the present administration.
It is also to the credit of the Senate that DSS arrested the owner of Capital Oil, Mr. Ifeanyi Ubah, after raising the alarm over alleged stealing of oil belonging to the NNPC. The same Senate intervened over the hike in electricity tariffs on behalf of the people sometime ago, the same way it shot down the proposed hike in communication tariffs.
A time was when the executive requested for $30 billion loan to help keep the economy running but after the Senate interrogated the request, all that was needed was just $1.5 billion, which was then granted. That’s a commendable check for balancing sake. It is not a perfect senate, no doubt, it is definitely not the devil that it is being painted to be.
In the final analysis, the import of all these is that the Senate has refused to be distracted by the avoidable and needless confrontations and moving on to delivering on its basic assignments. As it is, this Senate is poised to live above the distractions occasioned by those who think the principle of separation of powers is a joke or at the behest of the executive.
