Hard nuts Reps must crack in 2017
Budget controversy From last January when the House resumed from its 2015 Christmas and New Year break, it faced a very serious challenge that had to do with the 2016 budget. First, news filtered in that the proposed budget was missing, but it later emerged that it was not when Speaker Yakubu Dogara publicly displayed […]
Budget controversy
From last January when the House resumed from its 2015 Christmas and New Year break, it faced a very serious challenge that had to do with the 2016 budget. First, news filtered in that the proposed budget was missing, but it later emerged that it was not when Speaker Yakubu Dogara publicly displayed copies of the budget during a plenary session in January.
But that seemed to be the beginning of fresh troubles that trailed the budget with the controversy known as budget padding. When eventually the appropriation bill was passed by both the Senate and the House in March, President Muhammadu Buhari withheld his assent, citing some irregularities.
Thus, a team from the legislature, led by Deputy Speaker Yussuf Suleimon Lasun, and that of the executive arm led by the minister of budget and national planning, Udoma Udo Udoma, were set up to rework the budget, which they did.
This action of setting up the two teams was necessitated largely by the actions of the suspended former chairman of the House appropriation committee, Abdulmumin Jibrin, who allegedly allocated projects worth over N4.3 billion to his Kiru/Bebeji Federal Constituency of Kano State.
As a result of his action, his colleagues initially demanded his resignation, but when he refused, they pressurized Dogara to sack him mid April, but the speaker did not. Eventually, the budget was signed into law on Friday, May 6.
Dogara finally yielded to pressure on July 20, a day before the House proceeded on its annual recess, and relieved Jibrin of his assignment in the appropriation committee. He was immediately replaced by another Kano lawmaker, Mustapha Bala Dawaki, who hitherto headed the committee on housing.
It is believed that if the House must avoid a repeat of the budget controversy of 2016, its new appropriation committee chairman must not only carry all the committee members along, he must also make all the committee activities as open and transparent as possible to the Nigerian public.
Constitution amendment
The year 2016 saw a number of bills introduced on the floor of the House, which sought to amend one section of the 1999 Constitution or the other with a view to bringing new items on board and improving the law.
One of the major bills introduced in this regard was a bill that seeks to alter the constitution to establish the Ecclesiastical Courts of Appeal, simply called Christian Courts.
The bill is sponsored by Rep Istifanus Dung Gyang (PDP, Plateau) and eight others seeks to make matters related to Christianity and Christians to be treated by specialized courts.
Gyang said the amendment would widen Nigeria’s jurisprudence and legal practice, saying “The amendment sought by this bill is to activate Section 37 (1) of the Constitution, which guarantees the rights of every citizen to freedom of thought, conscience and religion, including freedom to propagate his religion and belief in worship, teaching, practice and observance.”
Another bill on the constitution amendment is the one sponsored by Rep Abdullahi Balarabe Salame (APC, Sokoto), which seeks to give additional powers to Shariah Courts of Appeal to be able to deal with some criminal matters.
Nigerians would wait to see how the House deals with these two bills, considered to be controversial, in 2017 under its special ad-hoc committee on constitution review headed by Lasun. The exercise is expected to finish during the first quarter of 2017.
Other bills on constitution amendment included separation of the office of the attorney-general from that of minister of justice and local government autonomy.
Petroleum Industry Bill (PIB)
Another nut that members of the House must crack is the Petroleum Industry Bill (PIB), which has been in the National Assembly for a very long time. The bill seeks to liberalize and improve the Nigerian oil industry. It was passed by the National Assembly at the twilight of last administration, but former president, Goodluck Jonathan did not assent it into law.
Nigerians would wait with baited breath to see how the lawmakers would deal with the PIB. During a press briefing on December 17, House leader, Femi Gbajabiamila, assured that by the first quarter of 2017, Nigerians would begin to see traction on the PIB.
Battered image
In view of the allegations and counter-allegations of budget and other fraud that came up in the wake of the sack of Abdulmumin Jibrin, the 360 members of the House must do all they could to redeem their image before Nigerians.
First, Jibrin alleged that four leaders of the House, namely Dogara, Lasun, Chief Whip, Alhassan Ado Doguwa and Minority Leader, Leo Ogor, attempted to force him to insert projects worth N40 billion for them in the budget.
He later extended the allegations to 10 other members and expanded it to accuse all members of the House of taking between N10 million and N20 million each as running costs monthly.
Daily Trust findings revealed that each member of the House gets about N7 million, while a senator gets N12 million monthly, totaling N46 billion annually.
Jibrin’s allegations got much public attention that they became the talk of the town throughout the first one month of his sack from the appropriation committee, that is from July 20.
Despite the fact that some Nigerians did not take Jibrin’s allegations seriously in view of the role he allegedly played in the budget controversy, the already bad image of the federal lawmakers got to its lowest ebb, and they need to do a lot of work to redeem it in the new year.
Jibrin’s return from suspension and expulsion threat
When Abdulmumin Jibrin involved all members of the House in his allegations, he angered his colleagues so much so that when they reconvened from their 2-month recess on September 20, they launched an investigation into his utterances.
A week later, the ethics and privileges committee, chaired by Rep Ossai Nicholas Ossai (PDP, Delta) turned up with its report that recommended Jibrin’s suspension from the House for 180 legislative days, which translated into one year suspension in view of the sittings of the House, which start from Tuesdays and end on Thursdays.
Among the punishment meted on Jibrin, apart from the suspension, was that he would never be given any assignment any longer throughout the lifespan of the 8th House and that his return from the suspension would depend on his showing remorse and apologizing to the House.
So far, Jibrin was yet to apologize, and in fact, he vowed not to. He continued to make one allegation or the other intermittently. He recently embarked on self-exile to the United Kingdom, citing threats to his life. But he has returned last week.
He now faces the threat of complete expulsion from the House, following two petitions presented to the House by the National Youth Council of Nigeria (NYCN) and a group of people from the lawmaker’s constituency.
A motion on the matter was recently adopted by the House to allow Jibrin appear before the ethics and privileges committee to defend himself on the allegations that he operates five different foreign accounts among others. Will the House allow him return or will it extend his suspension and/or expel him?
CCB/CCT Acts amendment
The House had in May surreptitiously passed a bill seeking to amend the Code of Conduct Bureau (CCB) and Code of Conduct Tribunal (CCT) Acts. Thus, the Senate, which hitherto rejected the bill, concurred on the passage.
The amendment seeks to remove the power to appoint the heads of the two bodies from the president to vest same on the National Assembly.
But this came with a backlash from many Nigerians against the backdrop of the ongoing trial of the Senate President, Bukola Saraki, at the CCT.
As a result of the backlash, Gbajabiamila came up with a point of order on November 1, demanding that the House should rescind its decision on the matter, but Dogara blocked that move following arguments by some lawmakers that such action could only be taken via a substantive motion on notice.
However, when eventually Gbajabiamila’s substantive motion came up for debate, it was stepped down and it did not come up again up to December 15 when the House embarked on Christmas and new Year break.
Although Gbajabiamila seemed to have given up when he told journalists that he believed Buhari would not sign the controversial amendment bill into law, the motion for the House to rescind its decision may still come up in 2017, which will definitely be a hard nut to crack in view of party divisions in the House.