Deepening face-off between N’Assembly and Jonathan

L-R: Aminu Tambuwal, David Mark and Goodluck Jonathan

Without doubt, things have fallen apart between the Executive arm of government and the National Assembly.

A row that began publicly on May 29, during Democracy Day celebration, over the implementation of N4.7trn 2012 budget is spreading like a wild fire.

Speaker, House of Representatives, Aminu Tambuwal, had fired the first salvo.

Tambuwal had said President Goodluck Jonathan’s refusal to implement the budget in full and sign important bills passed by the National Assembly was inimical to democracy in the country.

In response, Jonathan argued that budget as passed by the National Assembly was not implementable. He accused the legislators of padding the budget without recourse to the fundamentals and benchmarks set for the budget.

As if to join the fray, the Senate, through the Deputy President of the Senate, Ike Ekweremadu, flayed Jonathan’s intransigence.

He had reasoned that the president was wrong in saying that the budget was padded, as budgets were often returned as sent by him.

Even the President of the Senate, David Mark, could not sit on the fence. He said the proposition of the Executive that the budget should not be tampered with by the legislature was alien to the Constitution.

The scenario evokes a sense of deja vu for observers who still remember former President Olusegun Obasanjo’s relationship with the legislature on this subject.

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 Jonathan’s administration. His government is dilly-dallying on the implementation of findings of the report, which required that 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 being the mastermind of the plot. But the presidency swiftly denied the charge.

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 remains adamant to the House summons on the deteriorating insecurity in the country.

But the stand-off reached a crescendo last Thursday when the House said it would commence an impeachment process against the president in September if the level of budget implementation remained the same after it returned from vacation.

House Minority Leader, Mr. Femi Gbajabiamila, had proposed an amendment to a motion moved by the Chairman, House Committee on Rules and Business, Mr. Albert Sam-Tsokwa, who had prayed the House to seek an interface with the president in order to find ways of accelerating the implementation of the budget by the MDAs.

Gbajabiamila said, “If by September 18th, the budget performance has not improved to 100 per cent, we shall begin to invoke and draw up articles of impeachment against Mr. President.” He could hardly end his submission when the “ayes” reverberated.

As argued by Gbajabiamila, citing Section 143 of the 1999 Constitution, any action of the president defined as “gross misconduct” by the National Assembly was sufficient grounds to initiate impeachment proceedings against him.

In the Senate, same day, a truculent motion by the Deputy Leader of the Senate, Senator Abdul Ningi, suggested a conspiracy of some sort between the two chambers.

Ningi, a former leader of the House, had drawn Senate’s attention to the need to investigate a transaction that involved the Federal Government on one side, and Malabu Oil and Gas Limited, and Shell/Agip Oil on the other. The transaction is reportedly about $1.092bn.

Adroitly, Mark referred the matter to the Selection Committee, which he chairs to determine the propriety of setting up an ad hoc committee for the assignment.

Earlier, the House had set up a committee to probe the same matter.

It is difficult for now to say how this row will end. But what is obvious is that the hands of the legislature are on the trigger. But will it pull it? Only time will tell!