President Goodluck Jonathan and the
Speaker of the House of Representatives, Mr. Aminu Tambuwal, on Monday openly
disagreed on the concept of separation of powers and budget preparation.
The President said although there was
a theoretical separation, the Executive and the Legislature must work together
if democracy must be meaningful. But the Speaker accused the Executive of
refusing to sign some bills passed by the National Assembly.
They spoke at the 2012 Democracy Day
National Symposium titled “Our Democracy: Progress and Challenges” at the
Banquet Hall of the State House, Abuja.
Tambuwal said the non-signing of the
bills by the President had made the process of lawmaking very cumbersome. He
added that the ‘anomaly’ had also led to a situation where some of the affected
bills had to be re-introduced in the parliament.
He also faulted the disposition of
the executive to the roles being played by the National Assembly in budget
presentation.
Tambuwal said, “Another challenge is
the issue of assent to bills passed by the National Assembly. In as much as it
is the constitutional duty of the legislature to pass laws, it is equally the
constitutional responsibility of Mr. President to assent to them.
“It is however disturbing to note
that the Executive has shied away from this responsibility by not assenting to
bills passed by the National Assembly. This makes the legislative process
cumbersome because some of these bills have to be re-introduced de novo. This is not a healthy situation
for the Executive-Legislature relationship neither does it portray our
democracy in good light in the comity of nations.
“Representation is the third function
of the legislature; it denotes the power of the people to either act directly
or through their representatives. In this regard, I wish to allude to the issue
of budgeting.
“The Executive arm of government is
made up of only two elected functionaries to wit the President and the
Vice-President whereas the National Assembly is a body of 469 elected
functionaries. The adage that ‘two heads are better than one’ is reinforced by
that which says ‘he who wears the shoe knows better where it pinches’ and both
favour the position of the elected representatives.
“In the people’s wisdom enunciated in
the 1999 Constitution (as amended), the legislature has the final say on the
budget document by way of a veto where the right of final say is resisted. The
National Assembly has acted responsibly and cautiously in the exercise of this
power in the belief that the Executive will come to terms with this reality
before long.”
Despite the knocks, Tambuwal however
observed that the Jonathan administration was doing better than that of former
President Olusegun Obasanjo which he accused of “reckless executive
interference” on issues concerning the National Assembly.
But Jonathan said a situation where
the Executive and the Legislature work at cross purposes would not augur well
for the nation.
He said people elected on the same
party platform, either in the legislative or executive arm of government, must
be ready to embrace party manifesto and work for the common good.
The President regretted that while
the Executive was working hard to reduce unnecessary overhead by looking into
the issues of overlapping agencies, people still go to the National Assembly to
lobby members into creating more parastatals.
He also regretted that despite the
fact that the constitution empowered the Executive to plan and manage the
economy, the National Assembly was in the habit of tampering with annual
budgets as if it was not the responsibility of the legislature.
Jonathan said the clear division
currently obtainable would only expose the National Assembly to anti-government
individuals and groups to manipulate.
The President said, “Let me talk
about separation of powers which in some cases sounds even absurd. How separate
are these powers? Yes, you can separate the judiciary to some reasonable level
but can you really separate the parliament from the Executive and have a stable
government? That is one of the greatest challenges we have, especially in
Nigeria.
“I believe if the parliamentarians
and those in the Executive maintain that theoretical separation of powers as if
there is a wall separating the Executive from the Legislature, then this
country would continue to have problems.
“The Speaker made reference to bills
for example, we all belong to political parties but the judiciary does not
belong to parties. Every political party has a manifesto and those who contest
elections to hold any office whether in the Executive President,
Vice-President, governor or those who contest election to be in the legislative
arm of government, either as a legislator or councillor, are supposed to
campaign based on the party manifesto and that is why individual governors
don’t have their separate manifesto.
“Every member of PDP (Peoples
Democratic Party) for example is supposed to key into the PDP manifesto. So
when we are elected into office, both arms of government are suppose to work
together to make sure that the party manifesto guides our actions. If that is
true, how do we separate them?”
Jonathan said since there was nowhere
in the world where any President emerged with 100 per cent votes, the onus lies
on those who lost election to allow those who won do their work.
“If we begin to see this clear
division, we are exposing the National Assembly for people who are
anti-government to use. It is not good to always celebrate the separation, when
we begin to celebrate the separation, those outside government would use the
National Assembly against the Executive.
“For democracy to be meaningful and
for us not to have conflict and for us to render good service, we must have a .
Budget is a law, the constitution says the Executive must have a budget for you
to be able to plan and manage the economy of the country.
“If you send your budget to the
National Assembly and they tear it to pieces and package what they like, you
start planning and managing the economy. We have challenges every year. When we
came in 2007, our budget in 2008, we even wanted to go to court, so that the
Supreme Court could tell us if it is the duty of the NASS to plan the economy,
let them do the budget, hand over to us, we implement. But if it is our duty,
then they should listen to us, because the Executive has ministries of planning
and finance that work with CBN.”
“Budgets are not created from the
moon, it is based on projections, commitments and funding and what you see
sometimes could be disturbing. This has been a major conflict between the
National Assembly and the Executive. The speaker mentioned it, that is why I am
raising it, these are little things if both arms of government work together.”
“My plea is that the legislative and
the executive arms of government of the same political party must work together
for democracy to be meaningful to Nigerians.”