• Friday, March 29, 2024
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Attention shifts to executive-legislature relationship

Ahmed Lawan-Ovie Omo-Agege

The emergence of the anointed candidates of the Presidency and the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) into the positions of presiding officers in the National Assembly has reignited the issue of cordial relationship between the executive and the legislative arms of government.
On Tuesday, Ahmad Lawan and Ovie Omo-Agege were elected as president and deputy president of the Senate, respectively, while Femi Gbajabiamila and Ahmed Idris Wase emerged as speaker and deputy speaker of the House of Representatives. The four had been earlier endorsed by the party and the Presidency.

President Muhammadu Buhari had already expressed happiness over the emergence of the new leadership of the National Assembly, describing it as “a new dawn, different from duplicity and perfidy of the immediate past”.

“The executive does not desire a rubber-stamp legislature. While separation of powers is essential, collaboration among all arms of government should be the name of the game. Opposition need not be virulent,” Buhari said.

“Stepping into the Next Level, the legislature has a big role to play for the goals of the administration to be achieved. This is for the ultimate good of the nation. At the end of the day, we, the people, who elected our representatives at the national level are the winners,” he said.
But analysts and some lawmakers are looking at the implication of this development for Nigeria in the next four years, with many of them saying it is a positive for the country.

In a chat with BusinessDay, Uba Sani (APC, Kaduna), said with the emergence of the four presiding officers, the coast is now clear for a cordial relationship between the executive and the legislature.

“With the emergence of the four presiding officers endorsed by the APC, I can assure you that there will be smooth working relationship between the two arms of government and the people will be better for it,” he said.

“This Senate of the Ninth Assembly will make a bigger difference than the other Senate,” said Ayo Akinyelure (PDP, Ondo).

Also speaking with BusinessDay, another lawmaker, Ishaku Abo (PDP, Adamawa), said the executive arm of government must work with the Ninth Assembly and focus on security. He said the government of Nigeria must focus on security immediately or Nigerians would wake up one day and realise that they no longer have a country.

James Ornguga, the APC publicity secretary in Benue State, said with new legislature, there would be no more delays on the budgets and requests from the Presidency.

According him, Nigeria would be better for it in the new era of smooth executive-legislative relationship, even as he dismissed the fear of rubber stamping of the legislature.

“I presume there is going to be a reliable and highly efficacious relationship between the executive arm of government and the legislature and henceforth the unnecessary delays, and the unpatriotic moves of the last Assembly have been already eliminated and we are trusting God that Buhari will move at a higher speed this time with this competent Assembly that is willing to cooperate with him in the interest of Nigeria,” he said.

“I am not looking at the idea of rubber stamping. I am looking at the competence and credibility of the people elected. Look at Senator Ahmed Lawan, a very competent legislator, he has been there over years. He has a lot of experience and is a man that is focused. So I believe he will not just back the President but back the interest of Nigeria. Look at Femi Gbajabiamila, another competent legislator. So the quality of people that we have produced clearly points to the fact that Nigeria will be better with them,” he added.

Analysts had attributed the executive-legislature rift that characterised the Eighth National Assembly from 2015 to 2019 to the emergence of the leadership of the National Assembly as they did not have the backing of the Presidency and the APC.

This, according to pundits, was also responsible for the highest number of rejected bills by President Muhammadu Buhari.

Some of the rejected bills include the Petroleum Industry Governance Bill, Budget Timeline Bill, Electoral Act (Amendment) Bill, Stamp Duties (Amendment) Bill, Industry Development (Income Tax Relief) (Amendment) Bill, among others.

Another issue that affected the cordial relationship between the two arms of government in the Eighth National Assembly was the budget.

While President Buhari had blamed the Eighth National Assembly for not passing the budget on time and accused lawmakers of padding the national budget, the presiding officers of the Eighth Assembly had attributed the late passage of the budget to late submission of the fiscal document by the President and refusal of heads of Ministries, Departments and Agencies to appear before relevant committees during budget defence.

For instance, last month, President Buhari criticised then Senate President Bukola Saraki and Speaker Yakubu Dogara for delaying budget passage during his first term in office.

In an interview on the Nigeria Television Authority (NTA), the President described as unpatriotic the action of the two principal officers of the National Assembly over the years.

Making specific reference to the delay in the 2018 budget which took the Eighth National Assembly seven months to pass, Buhari had said, “I told Saraki and Dogara that by holding the budget for seven months, you are not hurting me, you’re hurting Nigerians. In terms of patriotism, I rate them very, very low. I feel very bad indeed. National Assembly to hold the Budget for seven months.”

OWEDE AGBAJILEKE, Abuja