SAN FRANCISCO, June 05, (THEWILL) – Speaker of the House of Representatives Thursday declared that resorting to court actions to prevent the legislature from carrying out investigations into activities of government ministries department and agencies was not a proper practice, insisting that no one can stop the House.
Tambuwal, who declared this in his speech to end the third session of the 7th House of Representatives of the Fourth Republic, said:
“During the session, we witnessed the dawn of a disturbing trend whereby people now go to court to stop the National Assembly from exercising its constitutional mandate and conducting its internal operations.
“This is unheard of in jurisdictions where genuine democracy is practiced and venerated. The usual democratic practice is that the powers of the courts are activated to challenge laws enacted by the legislature. This is the proper manner in which the judiciary is enabled to perform its constitutional function as the interpreter of both the constitution and duly enacted laws.”
According to him, ” It is neither usual nor appropriate for the judiciary to be used pre-emptively to stop the legislature from acting in the first place. This is an encroachment on the powers of the legislature and a slap in the face of the principle of Separation of Powers.”
The Speaker lamented the security challenges that have engulfed the country, saying: “Virtually every member lost some of his or her constituents. Most heart-wrenching of all are the deaths of hundreds of Nigerians as a result of Boko Haram terrorism and communal conflicts.”
He however disclosed that in the last one year, a total of 169 bills were introduced during the Session, of which 46 passed second reading and 27 were subsequently passed into law. Six more bills, according to him, were laid on the Table and are awaiting the action of the Committee of the whole. In addition to the bills, several motions on matters of national importance were passed during the session by the House.
He said during the session under review, findings at oversight visits as well as complaints and petitions from members of the public consistently revealed the extent to which corruption has eaten into the fabric of the stewardship of public resources.
Tambuwal said the House “responded by launching necessary investigations to shine needed light into the darker recesses of public resource management in Nigeria, and where routine investigation is inadequate, we empanelled special committees to carry out a more thorough inquiry.”
He frowned at public servants who refuse to honour House summon.
“Strangely, the collective experience of our members in the course of the exercise of their oversight functions is that there is a growing culture of impunity on the part of public officers in Nigeria which makes them inclined to resist the ethos of accountability.
“Some hesitate to honour their invitation to appear before the House, while others resort to litigation in an attempt to frustrate legislative oversight of their activities,” he said.
The speaker assured that the House of Representatives would not be intimidated into abdicating its sacred duty to provide robust checks and balances to executive action, especially for the purpose of exposing corruption in the polity and of ensuring the judicious management of the nation’s common wealth.
Enumerating the challenges facing the House, Tambuwal said in the Budgetary Process, “The problem which the House experienced in the budgetary process emanated from several factors, including the entrenched culture of lateness in budget preparation and submission to the National Assembly by the Executive branch He noted that there have also been attempts to denigrate the National Assembly “for our insistence on instilling sanity in the budgetary process,” saying “Only recently, a certain government spokesman was quoted as claiming that the National Assembly ‘distorted’ the 2014 budget.”
He carpeted the FCT Police commissioner, Joseph Mbu, for attempting to stop the ‘Bring Back Our Girls’ campaign. According to him, the nation recently woke up to the sad dawn of a Commissioner of Police acting on his own initiative, without clearance from his superiors and in flagrant contravention of the clear constitutional guarantees of the right of citizens audaciously purporting to ban the peaceful assembly of Nigerians.
“This is an unacceptable abridgement of the rights of Nigerians to freedom of speech, association and peaceful assembly, and this House must treat this matter with the seriousness it deserves.
“The fact that the office of the Inspector-General of Police felt compelled to deny the action of the Police Commissioner only goes to underscore the audaciousness of the conduct of the Police Commissioner,” he said.
He warned that ” Any attempt by anybody to infringe on the rights of Nigerians is a direct affront to this House,” stressing that “This House must therefore take necessary measures to ensure that such sacrilege does not repeat itself anywhere in Nigeria.”
He also maintained that “ The culture of impunity at the highest levels of governance in Nigeria must be brought to a halt.”
SAINT MUGAGA, ABUJA
