National Assembly and the plethora of unsigned bills

 

There are three arms of government, namely: the executive, the legislature and the judiciary. The three, though independent, are also dependent on one another for effective governance. There are arguments about which arm is superior to the other, but suffice it to say, one cannot do without the other. The legislature makes the law, the executive implements the law, and the judiciary interprets the law. That’s elementary, though. The executive can introduce laws in the form of executive bills to be processed into legislation by the legislative assembly. A very clear case in point is the Appropriation Bill which is annually presented to the legislature by the executive for passage. In a similar manner, no bill will have a force of law unless signed by the head of the executive arm, which is the president, governor or chairman of the local government area. Alternative to that is the overriding of the veto by the lawmakers.

A warm welcome to Nigeria’s federal lawmakers as they resumed work yesterday, January 18, 2022, after their Christmas/New Year break. There’s quite a lot on their table to take on but the three top legislations they need to prioritise are the Electoral Act Amendment Bill 2021— which was vetoed by the President, Major General Muhammadu Buhari (retd.), in November 2021, the Constitutional Amendment Bill and the proposed 2022 Appropriation Act amendment bill promised to be sent by the president over the ‘un-implementable 2022 Budget’ he signed on December 31, 2021.

These bills have to be given prime attention because of their impact on politics, the economy and governance. Take, for instance, the Electoral Amendment Bill; many of us are having a feeling of deja vu because of the similarities to the process that led to the rejection of the 2018 Electoral Act Amendment Bill. The president initially raised issues about three clauses in the 2018 bill. When that was fixed, he twice raised concerns over drafting errors and cross-referencing gaps and, on the fourth occasion, the president claimed the amendment was done too close to the 2019 general elections, against the advisory of the ECOWAS protocol on democracy for member countries not to tinker with the legal framework for elections six months before the polls.

In 2021, after over two years of deliberations, the first snag was the Senate passing a version of the bill which asked the Independent National Electoral Commission to get approval from the National Communication Commission and National Assembly before it could deploy electronic transmission of results devices. When there was public outcry over this, the Senate recommitted the bill, passing the same version as the House of Representatives, which had given INEC leeway to deploy the electronic transmission of results device as soon as practicable. I thought that would end the controversy. However, some powerful interest groups in NASS decided to alter section 87 of the Electoral Act 2010, as amended, which has given political parties the choice of using direct or indirect primaries in the nomination of their candidates.

The president hinged his veto on the electoral bill on the provision of only direct primaries as candidate nomination process. That has generated another round of controversy, with many lampooning the president for being afraid of electoral reform and preferring the status quo to remain, while others, like the Inter-Party Advisory Council, Nigeria Governors’ Forum and other power brokers blamed the National Assembly for not consulting widely before altering section 87 of the Act thereby foisting on the political parties a Hobson’s choice. They claim the choice of direct primary is self-serving for federal lawmakers.

I have said on this page that there’s no mode of party primary that is immune from manipulation and fraud. Evidence abounds to support this. It was the much-touted direct primary that was used in the selection of Senator Andy Uba in the lead up to the November 6, 2021 governorship election in Anambra State. The Federal High Court has since invalidated that primary for not being properly conducted. The court even asked INEC to remove Uba’s name from the list of candidates in the election he had already lost. Was it not the direct primary option that former Governor Abdulaziz Yari of Zamfara State claimed to have used in the election of candidates in the lead up to the 2019 general elections? Yet, the Supreme Court said there was no credible primary held in the state and asked whoever was the runner up in the election to be sworn in instead of the All Progressives Congress candidates. Indirect primary is generally known to be prone to fraud and manipulation as well. There are usually controversies about the authenticity of the delegate list. I recall vividly the ruckus over the delegate list of Ondo APC primary during the first term of Governor Rotimi Akeredolu.

Ironically, in the president’s letter conveying his withdrawal of assent to the Electoral Act Amendment Bill in December 2021, the several media interviews granted by the Attorney General and Minister of Justice, Abubakar Malami, SAN; the press release by Senior Special Assistant to the President on Media and Publicity, Malam Garba Shehu and, indeed, INEC response to the president’s request for advice on the bill, none of them mentioned the drafting errors and cross-referencing gaps that civil society organisations alluded to in their December 29, 2021 memo to the National Assembly.  Eight civil societies, including YIAGA Africa, CLEEN Foundation, Nigeria Women Trust Fund and International Press Centre, have discovered 11 clerical errors and cross-referencing gaps in the electoral bill. Why was this not flagged by earlier commentators on the bill? Was it a deliberate ploy to return us to the 2018 debacle when there was a serial rejection of the bill?

On the constitutional amendment bill, which is the fifth alteration, NASS has already conducted public hearings on the bill since mid-2021. What then could be delaying the passage, knowing full well that even when the National Assembly passes the bill, at least two-thirds of the State Houses of Assembly, that is 24 out of 36, will need to pass the bill as well before it will be sent to the president for assent. Many have speculated that pecuniary interests may be responsible for the delay, given the fact that a billion naira is earmarked annually for the constitutional amendment exercise by each of the two chambers of the NASS. It is believed that if the fifth alteration to the 1999 Constitution of Nigeria is successful, it will marginally address the issue of restructuring which many well-meaning Nigerians have been clamouring for.

While signing the 2022 appropriation law — better known as the budget — on Friday, December 31, 2021, President Buhari expressed great reservations about the N735 billion increase and the insertion of 6,576 new projects by the National Assembly among other concerns. He promised to send in an amendment to the Act as it is ‘unimplementable.’ Given the fact that budget drives the economy, it is my fervent hope that the federal lawmakers will speedily attend to the amendment once it is received from the president.

Of greater concern to me is the high volume of rejected bills by the president. This newspaper in its Sunday PUNCH of May 30, 2021, reported that no fewer than 40 out of the 48 bills, so far passed by the Ahmad Lawan-led 9th Senate, are awaiting either the presidential assent or the House of Representatives’ concurrence as of that time. Also, no fewer than 160 out of 287 bills passed by the Bukola Saraki-led 8th Senate were not given assent by the President. The Senior Special Assistant to the President on National Assembly Matters (Senate), Senator Babajide Omoworare, told The PUNCH correspondent that some of the new bills made provisions for agencies whose functions were already being taken care of by existing agencies of government.

He was quoted as saying, “The president always gives reasons for withholding assent to bills. Some functions being given to agencies which the bills are meant to create are already being performed by an agency of government and there would be no point in duplicating efforts. Also, the president considers the funds available to government before approving the establishment of new agencies or institutions, proposed in some bills which may be an additional burden on the government.’’

 

As the National Assembly resumes for the 2022 legislative year, the two chambers should take cognisance of this untoward situation and carry out due diligence on the bills they pass, especially as Private Member Bills, given the fact that most Executive Bills get assented to. Non-signing of bills is a sheer waste of time, energy and funds, which could have been deployed to better use. It is not the number of bills passed that should matter to our lawmakers across the three tiers of government but the quality of such legislations.