ABUJA – National Assembly yesterday, resolved to toe the path of honour in their disagreement with the Presidency over fourth alteration attempt of the 1999 Nigerian Constitution (as amended), by challenging the subsisting court order on the matter.
The decision of the federal legislative house to jettisoned its earlier plan to override President Jonathan ‘s veto on the 2015 Constitution Amendment Bill in deference to the Supreme Court restraining order was a fallout of two hours executive session, that preceded the plenary.
Disclosing what transpired at the closed door session, presiding Senate President David Mark explained that the session singularly focussed on the bone of contention between the Presidency and the National Assembly in the 2015 Constitution Amendment, upon which, the Supreme Court gave stay action ruling last week.
He explained that as lawmakers, it would be out of place to take action that portrays the Senate in particular and the NASS in general as lawbreakers but, warned that their law abiding posture should not be taken for granted by the Executive arm.
“As we finished our discussion at the executive session, I think it is proper for me because of the importance of the issue at stake , make a very simple, straight forward and unambiguous statement.
We are lawmakers and we will not be law breakers. We are not just law makers, we are very senior responsible citizens and very senior lawmakers and this is the apex of law making in this country.
Therefore on the issue of the current Constitutional Review that is before the Supreme Court, we want to assure Nigerians that we will not break any law in this country.
We will take appropriate action that will ensure that democracy survives but I will also want to warn that we should not be taken for granted by the executives but once more let me assure Nigerians that as lawmakers, we will not be law breakers”, Sen. Mark continued.
However in a press chat shortly after the plenary, Senate Leader, Victor Ndoma-Egba explained: alleged that the Senate has been ambushed by the executive but that the red chamber has resolved at the executive session, to apply for vacation of the court order.
“We have legal option and the legal option is to vigorously challenge the order of the court which was made exparte; it was made without us being put on notice; I believe we can get the court to quickly determine that; and we intend to pursue that option; We should expect this legal challenge as soon as possible”, Sen. Ndoma-Egba continued.
He regretted that while the Constitution Review Committee of the Senate had discussed the presidency’s observations that led to the veto and agreed to make certain recommendations to Senate in plenary, “we had the court order which again is another development; and we had to thoroughly review those developments at the closed-session today to agree on a way forward”.
He further recalled that although “there was a resolution taken on the floor of the Senate that the Bill should be returned, that resolution has been communicated to the President and Commander-In-Chief and up till now, we have not gotten back the original copy”.
“We have our suspicions why the original has not been returned; our suspicions is that, it had been signed”, he added.
Still on the vexed Constitution amendment, he noted that “this process has taken about three years, we started off with retreats in Akwa Ibom. We had another retreat in Lagos, we had public hearing in Abuja, we had public hearings in the 6 geo political zones, we had public hearing in 36 state capitals, we had public hearings in the 360 Federal Constituencies.
The hearings were open to the public at large including members of the executive; the executive was very strongly represented. It is at those hearings that you are supposed to highlight your reservations or your concerns about each of the amendments.
They did not use any of those opportunities provided by each of these public hearings only for us at this point when the houses of assembly has passed the amendments and we are to conclude that we are suddenly confronted with this ambush. We think it is in bad faith and it is regrettable.
We are going to court to challenge the court order, we were not on notice, we did not have any notice, we were not represented
We are law makers not Law breakers; if you look at the 1999 Constitution, the Jurisdiction conferred on the Supreme Court did not include this kind of situation, where one arm of government is having an issue with another arm of government.
That jurisdiction was conferred by an Act of the National Assembly in 2002, which means it is a jurisdiction that we voluntarily gave to the Supreme Court and because that Jurisdiction came from us, we must be seen to be obeying the laws of the land.
The Constitution has given the judiciary the power to adjudicate in situations like this and the matter is before the judiciary, we acknowledge that. So the best way out is to go pursue that order and vigorously pursue its being set aside and that is exactly what we are going to do immediately”.
On alleged non-compliance of the NASS with the threshold specified in Section 9(3) of the 1999 Constitution on amendments, the Senate Leader retorted, “it is not correct; our records are very clear; the votes and proceedings are there; and we have gone through the records again and we certainly met the constitutional requirement of four-fifth”.
He added that “the Attorney-General who is alleging that we did not meet that constitutional requirement has not exhibited any document to show that we did not but from our records we clearly did”.
