365 Days of Yar’Adua and the National Assembly: A quagmire of parliamentary ding-dong

President Umaru Yar’AduaTaiwo Adisa writes on the executive-legislative relations in the last one year of the Umaru Yar’Adua-led administration.

When President Umaru Yar’Adua assumed office on May 29, 2007 with a gentle disposition to life, it was expected that such an attitude would dovetail into all activities of his government especially in his relations with the legislature. Executive/legislature relations have been a contentious aspect of governance since the coming of democracy in 1999.

Under the leadership of the immediate past president, Olusegun Obasanjo, there were a lot of tense moments between the two foremost arms of government as both arms struggled to assert its authorities. The defining moments of the Obasanjo government’s relations were usually the period during which the leaders of the two legislative chambers were chosen.

With such a background, often described as learning periods by watchers of the democratic rule, the incumbent administration is expected to have learnt a lot in the management of the legislature. In the last one year however, there has been a mix bag with the executive relapsing into the unwanted era of the old at crucial times.

President Yar’Adua started well with the legislature. He refused to be dragged into the election processes for the leadership of the House of Representatives and the Senate in June as he rebuffed several entreaties to do that. The president insisted then that he would ensure adherence to rule of law and the principles of separation of powers.

Thus, the first speaker of the House of Representatives, Hon. Patricia Olubunmi Etteh, emerged without the hands of the Presidency. Though, former President Olusegun Obasanjo had set the machinery in motion for her emergence before he left office, Yar’Adua did nothing to change the zoning arrangement and the candidate being prepared. The same thing was done in the Senate.

President Yar’Adua refrained from influencing the bid by the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) to install its preferred candidate for the seat of Senate President, Senator David Mark. Even when his name was mentioned by one of the factions which tried to upturn the party’s position by sponsoring Senator George Akume, the president was said to have reprimanded the group.

With the emergence of Mark in a keenly contested election on the floor of the Senate, many were quick to hail the democratic disposition of the Yar’Adua administration. It was the first time the seat would be keenly contested on the floor. Prior to the June 5, 2007 contest on the floor, the hand of the presidency would have been clearly written all over a candidate that it was either the other contestants would have withdrawn or the contest on the floor would just be a ratification of a prior shadow election that would have been conducted at party caucus. Mark started off with clear eyes on a harmonious executive/legislature relationship. Ditto for the former Speaker of the House of Representatives, Hon Etteh.

The first major test of the Yar’Adua resolve to keep the tenets of separation of powers came when the contract scandal that rocked the House of Representatives under Etteh’s leadership broke out. The president rebuffed several calls to have him interject in the crisis which held down operations of the House for nearly two months. He scored a good point for himself when he insisted that the House should follow its procedure and regulate its activities in line with the procedure. Eventually on November 1, the president appeared vindicated when members of the House of Representatives shoved aside Hon. Etteh and elected Hon. Dimeji Bankole as the new Speaker.

The ascension of Bankole coincided with the period the president would submit the 2008 budget estimates to the National Assembly and that period could be said to have marked the second half of Yar’Adua’s relationship with the legislature. While what can be regarded as the first half was smooth and full of respect for separation of powers, the second half cannot be said to have strictly followed that path.

Though, the president sought the cooperation of the National Assembly when he presented the 2008 budget to the joint sitting of the National Assembly on November 8 and was assured by the legislators that the budget would be passed before the end of the year, activities afterwards appeared to paint a picture of a relapse to the learning periods of Obasanjo years.

First, the National Assembly committees on Appropriation held a retreat to facilitate the passage of the budget in Makurdi, Benue State, early in November and insisted on full disclosure by the Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) of the revenue profile and sources.

The executive bodies refused to yield as the ding-dung on the 2008 budget began; it was a process that dragged the budget to the limits and the nation is yet to fully overcome the effects even now. While the Presidency insisted that the National Assembly should concern itself with budget estimates as passed onto it by the president, the legislators insisted that as the arm of government which has the power to appropriate for the nation, the legislature must be in the know as to the full details of the budget.

Grudgingly, the president was said to have mandated the MDAs to comply with the request by the National Assembly for hidden funds and the full revenue profile. He had also objected to the plan by the lawmakers to jerk up the crude oil benchmark from the $53.8 per barrel he submitted in November 2007.

With the legislators’ insistence, the benchmark was jerked up to $59 per barrel and right now, the legislators are more than vindicated as the prices of crude at international market stand at well over $130 per barrel.

With the disagreement over budget benchmark over and the MDAs compliance with the request for full revenue profile, a development that yielded over N300 billion hidden funds to the budget, the stage appeared to have been set in February 2008 for the passage of the budget. Though, that would be some four months after it was presented to the legislature, the blame cannot be heaped on the legislatures as executive bodies and the office of the Minister of Finance footdragged over which aspects of the National Assembly’s directive they could comply with.

As a result of the tardiness from the executive, the budget passage procedure was hampered in the two chambers of the National Assembly. The legislators, who had hoped to pass the budget by the end of December 2007, were still grappling with the estimates in February and when they eventually passed the budget on February 20, the president immediately fired a letter rejecting the budget. He raised eight objections in what quickly reminded all of the tenure of his immediate predecessor. It was unexpected that the Yar’Adua administration would relapse into the unenviable tracks of the executive in this regard.

But that is what has defined the 2008 budget passage, a problem that is still on ground. While operatives in the executive arm of government contended that the National Assembly went beyond its brief in tampering with the budget, especially by injecting new projects, the legislators insisted that it was within their powers to do so. It led to a huge ding-dung that dragged the nation to the brink. The legislators set up review Committees and scaled down the budget by N150 billion from the initial N2.89 trillion harmonised by the two chambers but the presidency still was not impressed. That incensed the lawmakers and they were threatening to veto the budget with the process almost commencing the process in the Senate when a peace parley between the leadership of the legislature and the presidency resolved the impasse. The agreement they reached was that the president would first assent the budget as passed and then present an amendment to the National Assembly.

Up till now, the president’s amendments are still being awaited at the National Assembly. That has already become a sore point between the legislature and the executive as the House of Representatives last week threatened to invoke the impeachment clause against the president for violating the budget law.

The contention in the National Assembly is that the executive arm of government has continued to implement the budget estimates submitted by the president on November 8, thus setting aside the Act passed by the National Assembly. It is contentious and the House has already summoned the Minister of Finance to explain this. In all, while Yar’Adua started well on the executive/legislature relationship front, he has since relapsed to the odd sides of that relationship and one other decimating factor in that is the appointment on May 15 of the acting Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), Mrs. Farida Waziri.

The appointment brought the executive in direct confrontation with the Senate, which has the power to confirm such appointments. Though, the Presidency applied the brakes by asking the woman not to resume duties before her confirmation by the Senate, it is obvious that the executive can make do without such excesses.