The Speaker of the House of
Representatives, Mr. Aminu Tambuwal, on Thursday described as curious,
the growing trend by public officials to resist the scrutiny of the
National Assembly.
In a veiled reference to the Minister of
Petroleum Resources, Diezani Alison-Madueke, Tambuwal said government
officials either ignored legislative invitations or simply refused to be
accountable when asked to respond to alleged corrupt acts.
But he warned while addressing his
colleagues in Abuja to mark the end of the third session of the current
2011-2015 legislative tenure, that the House would not be intimidated
by any official in its resolve to expose corruption in governance.
The House which is probing Alison-Maduke
for allegedly spending N10bn on chartered aircraft in the last two years
had said she severally ignored its invitations. The minister had also
filed a suit in court seeking to stop the House from going on with the
investigation, saying it needed the President’s nod before it could
summon her.
But Tambuwal noted that the “impunity” by
government officials was intended to “frustrate” the legislature from
performing its constitutional duties, adding that the intimidation would
not work.
“I wish to assure Nigerians that the
House of Representatives will 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 our commonwealth,” he said.
The speaker also noted that “strange”
things were happening to the country’s democracy, where government
officials resorted to filing court cases in the hope of stopping
legislative proceedings that called their actions to question.
He observed that some government
officials did not know how to draw the line between the duties of the
Executive and the Legislative arms of government.
Tambuwal spoke more, “This House has
only recently concluded the exercise of approving the 2014 budget. 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.
“There have also been attempts to
denigrate the National Assembly for our insistence on instilling sanity
in the budgetary process. Only recently, a certain government spokesman
was quoted as claiming that the National Assembly ‘distorted’ the 2014
budget.
“It is inconceivable that an institution
endowed by the 1999 Constitution with the legal duty and power to
perform a function can be said to be distorting the performance of that
function.
“Those desirous of a National Assembly
that will merely rubber-stamp a draft budget submitted to it by the
Executive must look elsewhere.
“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 practised 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.”
He argued that the resort to litigation
was “an encroachment on the powers of the legislature and a slap in the
face of the principle of Separation of Powers.”
Tambuwal condemned the acts of terrorism by Boko Haram, which had led to the loss of many lives in the last three years.
He added that the abduction of over 200
schoolgirls by the sect was a new dimension to terrorism that Nigeria
and the international community must do everything possible to confront
and secure the release of the girls.
The Speaker stated that youth
unemployment and abuse of citizens’ rights had also been on the increase
and urged the Federal Government and its agencies to respect the
fundamental human rights of Nigerians.
Tambuwal received a standing ovation from
lawmakers after the speech, which also drove home the point that they
had one year left in their four-year tenure.
The current tenure was inaugurated on June 6, 2011.
The House will resume on June 24 after a two-week end of session break.
