The Seventh Senate marked one year as the arrow-head of the nation’s parliament last Wednesday. CHIBUZO UKAIBE in this report looks back at their performance in the year under review.
The Seventh Senate marked one year, on Wednesday June 6. But the mirth that should have garlanded of the moment was overshadowed by the recent tragic Dana Airline crash in Lagos. The Senate President, David Mark, in his comments to mark the end of the session, reflected the grief despite the well above average performance of this Senate.
Nonetheless, this session of the Seventh Assembly, ditto the Senate is quite significant, in the history of the Senate since 1999.
According to the Leader of the Senate, Sen. Victor Ndoma Egba, this session has recorded the highest number of bills received than previous senates since 1999.
“This session of the Senate since 1999 is the most successful. We have received the highest number of passed bills since 1999. The implication for us is that the institution is maturing and getting more effective,” he said.
Bills…
Throwing more light on their activities in the last one year on Thursday, the chairman of the Senate Committee on Rules and Business, Sen. Ita Enang, disclosed that the Senate passed a total of 21 bills within the first legislative session, which began in June 2011, noting that a total of 178 bills were introduced in the Senate within the same period.
Out of these bills, 16 were executive bills, while the rest were private members’ bills. He said 122 of the bill were at the first reading stage, while 19 had been read for a second time and referred to the relevant committees.
Also 26 others are awaiting publication in the journal, while nine were withdrawn for re-presentation by sponsors. So far, a total number of 21 bills have been passed by the Senate.”
The bills passed within the period were Institute of Registered Safety Professionals; Same Sex Marriage (Prohibition) Bill 2011, among others.
He further cleared the air on the face-off over pending bills with the executive. He said that there are no bills pending at the executive for assent adding that all the bills at the executive were those sent during the last senate. “For now, not many bills passed by the 7th National Assembly pending assent are unreasonably long.
Unfortunately, this assembly cannot invoke constitutional powers of override because these bills were not passed by the Seventh National Assembly,” informed the Senate.
Enang insisted that: “The sixth Assembly that passed same stood dissolved by effusion of time and proclamation of Mr. President. Some of these bills are, however, being again reintroduced de-novo by distinguished senators and are at various stages of legislative progression.”
The bills in contention,? according to him, included National Assembly Service Bill; Harmonised Retirement Age of Professors of Tertiary Institution Bill; Chartered Institute of Capital Registrars Bill; Institution of Certified Public Accountants of Nigeria Bill; Nigerian Council of Food Science and Technology Bill; Personal Income Tax Amendment Bill; Discrimination against Persons Living with HIV and AIDS (Prohibition) Act 2011.
Others were National Biosafety Management Agency Bill; National Agriculture Seed Council Bill; Federal Capital Territory Appropriation Bill 2011; State of the Nation Address Bill 2011; River Basins Development Authorities (Amendment) Bill; Nigerian Integrated Water Resources Management Commission; Federal Capital Territory Water Board Bill; Air Force Institute of Technology of Nigeria Bill and the National Tobacco (Control) Bill 2011.
He however hinted at a possible veto in order to avoid the replay of sixth senate bills pending at the executive.
He said “as at this session of the 7th Senate, all the bills which we have sent to the? president, to our knowledge, none of them has the president withheld assent? yet. None of them has he withheld assent yet to our knowledge or communicated the withholding of assent.
“Again, what we will do in this Senate and this National Assembly, to avoid this situation is that we will consider most of these bills early enough, make sure we forward to them, and each of them we forward we keep the track and after 30 days we will remind ourselves that 30 days has passed and we will bring it to the floor for us to take a decision.
“So, most of these bills are those that were forwarded, we passed them almost at the end of the session. So even at that time if it were another president that came other than President Jonathan, God forbid, the person’s signature would have not been more valid at that time because we have constitutional question and legal issues now.”
However, a total of 48 resolutions were reached by the Senate, including the suspension of the Director General of the National Civil Aviation Agency, Harold Demureen, during the period of the investigation, the pension scam and the plight of person awaiting trails.
Numerous confirmations have been made also, including for memberships of Federal Character Commission, national and Residential Electoral Commissioners etc.
As far as oversights are concerned the senate has been fairly up to task although the Senate president, David Mark thinks they could do more. He pointedly blamed the lapses and corruption in the Ministries, Department and Agencies on inefficient oversight duties of the senate standing committees.
Still, the Senate has had to grapple with the perception burden of conducting probes. A number of probes have been undertaken under this seventh senate and it has had its share of probes.
Some of them include probe of Bureau of Public Enterprises (BPE), the probe of N1.4 trillion petroleum subsidy and the probe of the post-UTME examinations being conducted by tertiary institutions, investigation into misconduct of foreign airlines in Nigeria, investigation into the arbitrary increase in charges of Number plates/Licence Plate.
Others are Pension probe, investigation into the decline of sports, poverty alleviation programmes probe, investigation into failed rescue attempts for British and Italian hostages, investigation into economic viability of states, increasing number of awaiting trial persons in the Nigerian prisons among others.
But beyond the accusation that probes amount to nothing without the implementation of the recommendations, allegations of bribery and compromise have plagued the conduct of such probes.
As it stands now the committee investigating the pension probe has been a center of series of bribery allegations culminating in their alleged collection of $3bn as bribe from one of the pension scam suspects. The committee has since refuted the claim and sought legal redress on the matter.
Nonetheless, while some probes like the BPE probe has since been considered by the senate and far reaching resolution made known to the public others are yet to be concluded. However the conduct of probes in a country where corruption thrives has created a situation where persons under fire in the cause of the probes, decide to fight back and possible dirty against the panels raising in most instances unfounded allegations aimed at distracting the panel.
Still, the usually shocking revelations, no matter how faulted by allegations, continues to give a clearer insight into the workings of either a failed or corrupt system, as evident in the BPE, Licence/number plates probes among others.
More still, the senate has erroneously come under fire for the failure of implementation of the recommendations they pass on to the executive, whose responsibility it is to ensure sure recommendations are carried out.
This however ties to the weakness (not in content but in compelling authority) of the resolutions passed by the Senate, a situation that had initiated a bill at the last senate, seeking to make their resolutions binding on the executive.
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