Unsigned Bills

Section 58 subsections (3) (4) (5) of the 1999 Constitution, as amend, says that ‘Where a bill has been passed by the House in which it originated, it shall be sent to the other House, and it shall be presented to the president for assent when it has been passed by that other house and […]

Section 58 subsections (3) (4) (5) of the 1999 Constitution, as amend, says that ‘Where a bill has been passed by the House in which it originated, it shall be sent to the other House, and it shall be presented to the president for assent when it has been passed by that other house and agreement has been reached between the two houses on any amendment made on it. Where a bill is presented to the president for assent, he shall within thirty days thereof signify that he assents or that he withholds assent. Where the president withholds his assent and the bill is again passed by each House by two-thirds majority, the bill shall become law and the assent of the president shall not be required’.
So when the Chairman of the House of Representatives’ Committee on Information, Mr Zakari Mohammed, complained the other day that 40 bills were awaiting President Goodluck Jonathan’s assent to become Acts, he was in fact, even if unwittingly, indicting the National Assembly for failure to exercise its responsibility.
Speaking at a recent forum of the Correspondents’ chapel of the Oyo State Council of Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ) in Ibadan, Mohammed noted that the House ‘would have’ invoked the relevant portion of the Constitution to deal with the situation, but that “the political mood of the country had been sort of a handicap.”
It was not clear whether Mohammed’s remark was in part reference to the 120 Bills that were awaiting presidential assent as at September last year.
Of the 40 he cited, nine were those that establish nine new federal universities; Trafficking in Persons Prohibition Act Amendment; HYPPADEC Amendment 2012 and Transfer of Convicted Offenders.
 Under the law, the president must assent to a bill or send it back to the National Assembly within the specified timeframe for possible changes.   But the inaction of both the president and the National Assembly on these pieces of legislation means that taxpayers’ money has been wasted, with no result to show for it.
Instead of lamenting the president’s tardiness, why has the National Assembly not gone ahead and invoked its powers?  The National Assembly has a longstanding reputation of timidity in the exercise of its powers over these matters.  
With their uncommonly hefty remuneration, much more is expected of national legislators to make laws that would have positive impact on the lives of the citizens.  What has the mood of the nation got to do with the work of the National Assembly? Rather than this being a handicap, the ‘mood of the nation’, whatever it may be, should provide the impetus for the legislators to be more dedicated and robust in their duty.
Mohammed sought to blame the media for not reporting corruption cases, declaring that he was not impressed with coverage of democracy issues since 1999. He said there were a lot of vices going on in the polity which he said the media had not done enough reporting on. “Not only that our media practitioners are not doing enough of whistle blowing, the political actors run to the media for cover,’’ he said.
The onus is on the National Assembly to demonstrate what it has done in the fight against the very vices that Mohammed lamented over, in the absence of any tangible commitment by the executive branch. How many whistle blowing tips or leads have members of the National Assembly provided to the media or anti-corruption agencies and associated organisations?
Contrary to Mohammed’s allusions to media complacency, they are indeed replete with reports of corruption cases that the government has either failed to prosecute or played down as nothing serious.  The legislators should go beyond complaining and finger-pointing and do their job. The National Assembly resumed this week; the challenge for it is to get its acts together and salvage all the Bills before they lapse in May.