The
cold war between the executive and legislative arms of government may deepen,
as there are indications that President Goodluck Jonathan may back the
Director-General of the Securities and Exchange Commission, Arunma Oteh,
against the National Assembly. The House had called for the sack of Oteh and
the Director-General of the Bureau for Public Enterprises, Bola Onagoruwa.
The Senate, last week, adopted the
report of its ad hoc committee on privatisation and commercialisation, which
called for Onagoruwa’s removal for alleged gross incompetence and illegal and
fraudulent sale of the five per cent of Federal Government’s residual shares in
Eleme Petrochemicals Company Limited.
The House of Representatives had made
a similar call on the President to sack Onagoruwa.
The Lower Chamber of the
National Assembly had accepted all the recommendations of the Ibrahim El
Sudi-led ad hoc committee that investigated the near-collapse of the capital
market, and called for the sack of Otteh, adding that she was unfit to hold the
office.
Though a recent media report said the
President might be planning a soft-landing for the two embattled officials by
asking them to resign instead, the Special Adviser to the President on Media
and Publicity, Dr. Reuben Abati, said the powers to hire and fire officials
were vested solely in the President. He accused the legislature of overstepping
its boundary by dabbling in executive matters.
Abati, in an interview with our
correspondent on Thursday, said it was against the tenets of democracy for
executive power to be usurped by the legislative arm of government.
He said there would continue to be
friction in the system if one arm of government continued to do the job of
another arm.
He said, “The important thing to note
is that respect for the principle of separation of powers is the heart of
democracy.
“Legislators cannot be doing the work
of the Executive. The power to hire and fire and delegate powers rests in the
President.
“In a situation where the Legislature
calls for the sack every day under the guise of oversight function, there will
be confusion.
“We are not practising a parliamentary
system of government in Nigeria. The Legislature can check the excesses of the
Executive, but our legislators seem to be confusing a presidential system with
parliamentary system.
“We must learn to respect the
responsibilities and limits of powers given to institutions because there will
be friction when one arm of government attempts to do the work assigned to another
arm of government.
“Often times, the legislature
oversteps its boundary by dabbling in Executive matters.”
If Jonathan refused to accede to the
request of the lawmakers, this would not be the first time he would be doing
so.
The President had earlier shunned a
resolution of the House of Representatives asking him to come and brief the
lawmakers on the efforts of his government to tackle insecurity in the country.
In his vote of thanks during the
presentation of the 2013 Budget to the joint session of the National Assembly
recently, Speaker of the House of Representatives, Mr. Aminu Tambuwwal, had
frowned on Jonathan’s penchant for disregarding House resolutions, saying the
country could only benefit if the two arms of government worked together to deliver
their mandates.
“I am compelled however to state that
the National Assembly is becoming increasingly concerned about the disregard
for its resolutions and public comments by certain functionaries of the
Executive on same. I cite the Senate Resolution on the Bureau of Public
Enterprises, the House Resolution on the state of insecurity of the nation,
requesting Mr. President to visit and brief the House, the House of
Representatives Resolution on the Securities and Exchange Commission, the
concurrent Resolution of the two Chambers on Bakassi among others. This does
not promote cordial relationship between the Executive and Legislature and
consequently stability in the polity,” Tambuwwal had said.
Currently, the two arms of government
are also at loggerheads over the oil price benchmark for the 2013 Budget.
While government had pegged the oil
price for the 2013 budget at $75 per barrel, members of the National Assembly
wanted the government to jeck it up to $80 per barrel.
Source:
Punch
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