Why I can’t retire to the Senate like other governors – El-Rufai

Nasir El-Rufai, governor of Kaduna State, has said he cannot retire to the Senate like some of his colleagues.

El-Rufai also noted that the legislature is one branch of government he can never function as the hard work needed to convince people to support even their motion is what people like him have no patience for.

The Kaduna State governor spoke at the second edition of Distinguished Parliamentarians Lecture, 2022 organised by the National Institute for Legislative and Democratic Studies (NILDS) in Abuja on Monday.

He said: “You know management in the executive is very straightforward, it is very hierarchical and once you are governor, your word is almost law. But in the legislature, everybody is equal and there is no management that is more difficult than managing your equals.

“I don’t envy Mr Speaker and the Senate President at all because their job perhaps is the hardest job in this country. Managing equals is difficult. For the executive, you can hire and fire. I know that many of our colleagues governors are retiring to the Senate. But I can assure you that I will never retire to the legislature because I don’t think I can function there.”

El-Rufai, who was the chairman of the occasion, urged the 9th National Assembly to review Value Added Tax (VAT) and prioritise state and community policing, local government system reforms as well as enact a legislation to make education free and compulsory from 1 to 12 years as against the current nine years.

“This 9th Assembly has passed the most important and seminal legislations in this fourth republic. Like Oliver Twist, this Assembly in the last six months can do a bit more. I will list a few areas; first is state and community policing. I think we are all clear now that the current policing is not working for Nigeria.

“Secondly, Value Added Tax has become a major source of survival of this country because this year NNPC has not brought a penny to the federal account. We have been relying on taxes, particularly Value Added Tax and the fact that Value Added Tax is not on exclusive list is a major source of concern to the fiscal health of the federation. I think it’s something that this National Assembly can do something about in its last six months.

“There are issues about rebalancing of the federation like onshore mining and petroleum assets to be placed on concurrent list. Decentralisation of the judiciary because Nigeria again is the only federation with a unitary judiciary which doesn’t work for everyone.

“We have done this in Kaduna State but it will be helpful if the National Assembly takes charge and makes it a national policy and legislation of making 12 years of education free – primary, secondary, technical and vocational education…not just 9 years. It should be compulsory and first line charge on the budgets of states and local government.

“Finally of course, reforming the local government system; to make the local more autonomous and yet make each local government flexible to meet the needs of the state. In a diverse country like Nigeria one local government system does not fit all. We have history, traditions, what can work in Kaduna can not work in Anambra.”

Ahmad Lawan, president of the Senate while declaring the lecture open, told the Kaduna state governor that in the legislature, it is colleagues that hire and fire their leaders.

“In the parliament you meet equals. Actually, our colleagues are not our equals, they are our bosses, they hire us and they can fire us. So, it is a reversal of role but our colleagues in the 9th Assembly have been very magnanimous, having given us support all the way,” he said.

Lawan appealed to El-Rufai to help the National Assembly lobby his colleagues governors on the return of the constitutional amendments sent to their State Houses of Assembly for concurrence.

The senate president said the 9th National Assembly was eager to work on the document and pass the amendments into law even if it was one month to expiry date of the present session of the parliament.

Lawman said the 9th National Assembly has passed some of the most ground-breaking and significant legislations in the history of parliamentarianism in Sub-Saharan Africa.

“To mention but a few, the Companies and Allied Matters Act, which was passed in 2020, has revolutionized Nigeria’s corporate world and fostered the “ease of doing business” agenda of the federal government of Nigeria.

“The Petroleum Industry Act, which was passed in 2021, is a watershed enactment that clearly stipulates new principles, new regulatory regimes, and new governance frameworks for the realization of the full promise of Nigeria’s hydrocarbons potential.

“These ground-breaking legislations, among many others passed by this National Assembly with the significant contributions of the 9th House of Representatives, demonstrate the fulfilment of this National Assembly of its obligations under the social contract that exist between us and Nigerians,” he added.

Femi Gbajabiamila, speaker of the House, in the lecture titled: ‘Delivering on our contract with Nigeria; Implementing the Legislative Agenda of the 9th House of Representatives – Progress, challenges and Way forward,’ said one of the peculiarities of Nigeria’s democracy was that much of the population does not understand the legislature’s role in the nation’s democratic arrangement.

Gbajabiamila said the 9th House of Representatives has been an unusually productive parliament despite the limitations imposed by a global pandemic, having addressed longstanding challenges of governance and economics in our country.

“We have passed landmark legislation to fix our oil and gas industry, reform the police and reorganise the corporate administration system in our country. We have considered and passed meaningful legislation impacting all areas of our national life.

“Some of these bills are the Police Service Commission Act (Repeal and Re-enactment) Bill, the Electric Power Sector Reform Act (Amendment) Bill, and the Deep Offshore and Inland Basin Production Sharing Contracts Act (Amendment) Bill, amongst others.

“We passed a slate of bills to reform the aviation sector and clean up our airports so that these critical national assets can be properly administered to the best expectations of the Nigerian people. We have reformed the annual budget process of the Federal Government.

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“We have used the appropriations process and the power of parliament over the public purse to pursue community and constituency development across the country. We have invested in primary, secondary, and tertiary education infrastructure. We have provided ICT training centres to facilitate learning and enhance educational outcomes.

“We intervened to help resolve outstanding issues between the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) and the Federal Government so our young people could return to their academic pursuits after an extended period of industrial action by the union. Since then, the House of Representatives has worked to address the issues that led to the strike.

“We are currently working on the 2023 Appropriation Bill, which includes the sum of one hundred and seventy billion naira (N170,000,000,000.00) to provide a level of increment in the welfare package of university lecturers. The Bill also includes an additional three hundred billion naira (N300,000,000,000.00) in revitalisation funds to improve the infrastructure and operations of federal universities.”

The Speaker observed that recently, the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) announced a policy to redesign the Nigerian Naira and impose restrictions on cash transactions across the economy.

He said: “The National Assembly has been inundated with petitions from citizens worried about the impact of the new policies on their businesses and concerned that the policy approach will not deliver its stated policy objectives.

“Many have pointed to the fact that in India where a similar policy was implemented beginning in 2016, the expected benefits haven’t materialised, yet there has been a pronounced contraction in the economy probably linked to the policy.

“Now, whatever the concerns about the policy may be, it should not be the normal course of things for such a profoundly impactful policy program to be designed, approved, and announced without any engagement with the legislature, or any attempt to seek the perspectives of the people’s representatives.”
Earlier in his welcome remarks, Abubakar Sulaiman, the director general of NILDS said the parliamentarian public lectures serve as a platform where members of the parliament could tell their stories, programme accomplishments and challenges.

“Today’s lecture like the maiden one is an avenue of Legislative narration and a veritable platform connecting both the elected representatives and the people,beyond the confines of the two hallowed chambers,” he said.