The Nation Newspaper

Tag: Senate committees

  • Senate to ‘clean up’ committees

    Senate to ‘clean up’ committees

    Palpable apprehension gripped Senators on Thursday after the Senate President, Bukola Sarki, announced plans to reshuffle standing committees of the upper legislative chamber.

    Saraki said the committee clean up would be carried out before Senate goes on recess on July 26.

    The Senate has 69 standing committees with Saraki acting as Chairman of the Selection Committee.

    The announcement followed observations by Deputy Senate President, Senator Ike Ekweremadu, that senators clustered in some committees, thus making it difficult for them to attend sessions of other committees.

    Ekweremadu mentioned the Senate Committee on Tertiary Education and TETFUND as one of those under consideration.

    He said that out of 21 members of the Tertiary Education and TETFUND committee, only 12 signed the report of Federal University of Maritime Studies Bill.

    Saraki, who agreed with Ekweremadu on the issue, said something would be done to “clean up” the committees.

    He said: “I agree with the DSP. We are going to clean up the committees before we go on recess. We have discussed this at the leadership level and we are going to do something about it to ensure that the right thing is done.”

     

     

  • Senate committees get ‘matching order’ on 2016 budget

    The Senate on Tuesday gave its standing committees one week to submit all 2016 budget reports.

    Chairman, Senate Committee on Appropriation, Senator Mohammed Danjuma Goje, told the Senate in plenary that his committee is ready to receive reports of the standing committees on the 2016 budget.

    Goje said the time table for submission ofreports by various committees had been distributed to enable committee chairmen know when to turn in their reports.

    He noted that the early submission of the reports would enable the Appropriation Committee to consider and turn clean copy of the budget to the Senate for passage into law.

    Goje said the submission would end on Tuesday next week.

    He said the committee would sit from 8:00am to 6:00pm every day to receive the reports.

    He added that the committee was prepared to spot all errors, padding and inconsistencies in the submissions in order to produce a clean copy of the budget.

    Goje assured that Nigerians would happy with what the National Assembly would do.

     

  • Saraki warns Senators on oversight functions

    Senate President, Abubakar Bukola Saraki, on Monday asked Senators to ensure the highest ethical standards in the discharge of their oversight functions.

    Saraki warned that any Senator found engaging in unethical behaviour would not be spared by the Senate.

    He also cautioned Senators to avoid anything that would bring ethical question to the hallowed chamber.

    The Senate President spoke during the inauguration 11 standing committees of the upper chamber in Abuja.

    He said,”This 8th Senate takes ethics very seriously. It is my expectation that in your dealings with government agencies, you will observe highest ethical standards in discharging your duties.

    “You must realize that you are a mirror that citizens will continuously cast their gaze upon. Your behaviour will determine to a large extent how the larger society will perceive every one of us.

    “You must take care that you do not bring ethical questions upon this hallowed chamber. You must bear that in mind as you make your ethical choices while carrying out your duties. Any committee member found in an ethically doubtful behaviour will be sanctioned by this Senate.

    “I have also enjoined management and clerks to observe high standards of ethical behaviour in all their engagement with and for the committees especially on all oversight functions.”

    Saraki, who assured that the Senate leadership is willing and ready to support the committees with all that is needed to carry out their assignments, added that the committees are expected to be innovative and broadminded, learn and bring on board any relevant ingredient from outside jurisdictions that will enrich the quality and content of  law-making.

  • Senate committees: Marafa, Wakili in near fisticuffs

    Senate committees: Marafa, Wakili in near fisticuffs

    Two All Progressives Congress (APC) Senators, Kabiru Marafa and Ali Wakili almost exchanged blows over the constitution of Senate committees by Senate President Bukola Saraki.

    Marafa had sought further explanation from Saraki on his observation that the manner of the constitution of Senate committees was in contravention of Senate Standing Rules.

    The Zamfara Central lawmaker had last week told the Senate that because Saraki failed to subject the constitution of the committees to the approval of the Senate, the committees were illegal and non existent.

    He also faulted the composition of the Senate Selection Committee headed by Saraki saying specifically that the Deputy Senate Leader, Bala Ibn Na’Allah, is not the proper person to represent the Northwest because there were more ranking Senators than him.

    At the resumption of plenary yesterday, Marafa attempted to bring up the issue again during the debate on Senate Legislative Agenda.

    Saraki ruled him out of order on the ground that the Senate Rule frowns at reopening issues upon which the Senate had drawn conclusion.

    Saraki said the Votes and Proceedings on the composition of Senate committees had already been adopted.

    At this stage, Marafa stormed out of the Senate chamber and headed for the Senate Press Corps Centre.

    Unknown to him, Wakili was trailing him and followed him to the Press Centre where altercation ensued.

    Wakili (Bauchi South) said: You have come here to disgrace the Senate again. Is this what you want to do for the next four years?

    Marafa: I will, I will. Because I am not working for you.

    Wakili: You cannot sit down there and fight against the Senate.

    Marafa: I am representing Nigeria and representing my people. And let me tell you, even the nonsense thing they are saying about suspension, nobody can suspend a senator.

    Wakili: You are playing to the gallery. You are playing your script. Who has ever spoken about your suspension?

    Marafa: Let us talk about issues.

    Wakili: I have discussed your issues in today’s Mirror.

    Marafa: Mirror, which Mirror? Let us do it (address journalists).

    Wakili: Newspaper.

    Marafa: Who, my own?

    Wakili: Yes.

    Marafa: Mirror (Get me National Mirror). I will respond to it. We raised issues. And we give Orders and point of Constitution.

    Wakili: That is not what your Constituency sent you here (to do).

    Marafa: Are you one of them?

    Wakili: We are talking of poverty, education. You are wasting your energy here on useless Point of Order. I am warning you.

    Marafa: It is not useless. You can’t say that Point of Order is useless.

    Wakili: I will go to your constituency and see what you have done there.

    Marafa: Go back. I will go to your own. I was in politics before you when you were wearing uniform.

    At this stage the two Senators started dragging each other’s attire.

    Wakili: Gentlemen of the Press, there are issues bed evilling this country…. (Marafa interrupted him).

    Marafa: Even if you are God-fearing, because they made you Chairman, a bloody newcomer

    Chairman of a committee, that is why you are talking this way. I am not anybody’s game plan. I am speaking the minds of Nigerians.

    Wakili: Come, you are a storm in the Senate teacup and a Gad-fly.

    Marafa: I told you I was in politics when you were wearing uniform (dragging Wakili’s attire).

    Wakili: Leave me, look at it. That is not the issue. How old are you?

    Marafa: It doesn’t matter.

    Wakili: Let’s go.

    Marafa: (Talking to journalists). He said he raised issues in National Mirror. Let him say the issues, I will respond to them now, here.

    Wakili: You see, your experience has not helped you. It (Senate Rule) says that where such a matter has been decided, you cannot raise it again.

    Marafa: That is nonsense! That is hypocrisy. The problem with Senate President is that he was unwilling to learn his job. In the four years he stayed there, he was absent most of the time.

    Wakili: You are too personal. And this is not going to help you.

     

  • Court refuses to stop constitution of Senate committees

    Court refuses to stop constitution of Senate committees

    Justice Gabriel Kolawole of the Federal High Court, Abuja has declined a request by five senators to restrain the Senate from constituting its standing and adhoc committees.

    The judge, in a ruling yesterday, refused an ex-parte motion filed by the senators – Abu Ibrahim, Kabir Marafa, Ajayi Boroffice, Olugbenga Ashafa and Suleiman Hunkuni –  on the ground that it was without merit, because there was no urgency in the issue raised by the plaintiffs.

    The five senators, who had filed a substantive suit, brought the ex-parte motion, containing the prayer, and which their lawyer Mamman Osuman (SAN) argued yesterday.

    They said their prayer, which is to stop the constitution of the Senate committees pending the determination of their application for interlocutory injunction, was informed by the fact that the Senate was operating with an illegitimate and unconstitutional Senate Standing Orders 2015, including using it to conduct the election of June 9, which produced its leadership.

    The plaintiffs alleged that the Senate Standing Orders 2015 was “contrived” from the amendment of the 2011 version of the Orders without following its relevant provisions and those of the constitution.

    They argued that the said amendment was in breach of the “prescriptive procedures” stipulated by the extant provisions of Section 60 of the 1999 Constitution  (as amended) and Rule 110 (1), (2), (3), (4) and (5) of the Senate Standing Orders 2011 (as amended).

    The plaintiffs are of the view that the election of the leadership of the Senate and other proceedings based on the “unconstitutional Orders” were null and void.

    In his  ruling, Justice Kolawole held that there was no urgency in the case because the plaintiffs had known about the purported illegal Standing Orders since June  9, 2015, when it was allegedly used for the election, but  chose to file the ex parte motion barely 24 hours to resumption of the Senate from its about one month recess.

    He further held that the court would hardly intervene in a matter relating to the application or misapplication of the internal rules of the Senate or the legislature when such action did not amount to “substantial infraction” of the provisions of the Constitution.

    Justice Kolawole was of the view that, in matters relating to disputes over the “the decision reached by a majority of the members of the Senate”, aggrieved members of the arm of government could only seek a redress by mobilising their colleagues to reverse such decision.

    He held that in various appellate courts’ decisions, courts had been warned “to be wary” in intervening in such internal legislative activities, let alone granting an order to restrain the activities of that arm of government at the stage of an ex parte hearing.