His True Friends Should Disuade Him From Running -- Adebanjo
From Martins Oloja (Abuja Bureau Chief)
A TOP presidency official has given insight into why the current preliminaries of the National Assembly members on review of the 1999 Constitution may be an exercise in futility.
According to the official, there has been fundamental differences between the position of President Umaru Yar'Adua and that of the National Assembly on the matter.
As the source told The Guardian: "The President actually doesn't believe in the reported attempt to review the 1999 Constitution. He believes in amendment of the Constitution, as the Constitution itself provides.
"That is why Mr. President has not intervened in the National Assembly's reported failed attempt to sustain a Joint Committee on Review of the 1999 Constitution...
"No, he doesn't believe in that. That was why he forwarded some Bills only about amendment of the Constitution."
The source added: "The President is persuaded that the National Assembly's attempt to review the Constitution will be superfluous."
Besides, the state official tacitly revealed why the President has refused to intervene in the National Assembly's failed attempt to hold a Joint Committee on the Review of the Constitution.
Leaders of the National Assembly had, in March, convened in Minna, Niger State capital, for a retreat. It was organised by the Joint Committee of the National Assembly on Review of the 1999 Constitution.
The Committee was originally planned to work under the chairmanship of the Deputy President of the Senate while the Deputy Speaker was slated to be Deputy Chairman of the Committee.
But the deal was scuttled when some members of the House of Representatives on the 88-member Committee objected to the arrangement, claiming that the Deputy Speaker of the House had to be addressed as Co-chairman, rather than Deputy Chairman.
Unable to resolve the fundamental disagreement, the two chambers have, since March, gone their separate ways on the Constitution review exercise.
The unresolved conflict arising from claims over equality, or otherwise, of both Chambers was spotted as the critical factor that also scuttled presentation of the 2010 budget proposals the upper week in Abuja.
This development that was sequel to another "Black Tuesday" last week when the President mysteriously flew into Saudi Arabia where it was clear at the weekend that he had been receiving treatment for some heart-related challenges.
The stalemate on where the President was to present the 2010 budget proposals was resolved last Tuesday.
The President, represented by an aide, Senator Abba Aji, caused the document to be laid separately in both Chambers, according to a constitutional provision on how to present any Appropriation Bill to the National Assembly.
Thus, it took Nigeria's federal legislature more than a decade to realise in crisis that the President does not need any joint session to present budget proposals to the National Assembly.
The Guardian of last Sunday had reported that the President might present the 2010 budget to the legislature last Tuesday without saying a word or reading it, according to Section 53(2) of the 1999 constitution; and that was what he did by proxy.
In this regard, some political observers, including some National Assembly members, have literally accused the President of failing to use his good offices and his capacity as the ruling PDP leader to resolve the irreconcilable differences with his warring party top shots in the National Assembly.
But a top official in the office of the President, who is familiar with the politics of managing party politics in the powerhouse, said "the President would not like to interfere in resolving anything about "constitutional review" instead of amendment that the Constitution provides."
This is as news broke from the State House that the President had reluctantly met with the leadership of the National Assembly, notably the President of the Senate, Senator David Mark, and the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Honourable Dimeji Bankole, even as he had made arrangements to travel.
But the meeting was reportedly unsuccessful.
The official had, last Sunday, confirmed to journalists in Abuja that the parley was convened to resolve how to present the budget proposals to a joint session on Tuesday last week.
The National Assembly bureaucracy had then been put on the alert about the possibility of the President presenting the 2010 Appropriation Bill before compliance with constitutional provision came to the rescue of both the warring chambers and the Saudi-bound President.
Section 81(1) of the 1999 Constitution, which peacefully resolved the conflict over supremacy, provides unambiguously:
"The President shall cause to be prepared and laid before each House of the National Assembly at any time in each financial year, estimates of the revenues and expenditure of the Federation for the next following financial year..."
On the frivolous controversy over status of the two chambers of the National Assembly, the Constitution was invoked in an exclusive and predictive report last week this way, courtesy of Section 53(2) of the 1999 Constitution:
"At any joint sitting of the Senate and the House of Representatives -- (a) the President of the Senate shall preside, and in his absence, the Speaker of the House of Representatives shall preside..."
There is no mention, anywhere in the supreme law of Nigeria, about Deputy Chairman of the Joint Session of the National Assembly.
The law simply provides for how the Speaker should be the Chairman of the Joint Session if the President of the Senate cannot preside (in any joint session) as far as "Authorisation of Expenditure from Consolidated Revenue Fund" is concerned, as Section 81(2) provides.
