By JIDE AJANI, Deputy Editor & EMMANUEL  AZIKEN, Abuja

Perhaps, it may appear far-fetched to suggest that the Queen of England, Queen Elizabeth II had anything to do with the face off between members of Nigeria’s Senate and their House of Representative counterparts. But it is true. However, this report traces the love/hate relationship existing between senators and Reps, particularly under the leadership of Dimeji Bankole, the incumbent speaker, who rode to power promising his colleagues that he would engender a regime of parity between the House and Senate.  Will this work?

HOW the Queen of England, Her Majesty Elizabeth II played a role in the face off between Nigerian senators and members of the House of Representatives may have been thinly expressed in the unfolding confrontation between the two chambers of the National Assembly. Last Wednesday as Her Majesty presented her government’s legislative proposals for the forthcoming parliamentary session, one of the guests was Nigeria’s high commissioner to the Court of Saint James, Dr. Dalhatu Tafida. A former senator, the Nigerian envoy was one of the diplomatic guests to the annual ritual of the opening of parliament.

As he sauntered into the majestic parliamentary edifice, Tafida to his surprise, was ushered to the chambers of the House of Lords, where members of the upper house of the British parliament hold their sittings. A surprised Tafida was said to have expressed his shock that the session was holding in the smaller chamber of the British aristocrats, where upon one of his guides told to him that the joint session of the two chambers of the British parliament used to hold in the more spacious chamber of the House of Commons until about 300 years ago when members of the House of Lords revolted on account of the alleged slight on them by some members of the House of Commons.

Whatever was the slight to the aristocrats of the upper house was apparently not told to Ambassador Tafida. The truth, however, was that in 1642 King Charles 1 had attempted to arrest five members of the House of Commons inside the chamber but was rebuffed by the then Speaker of the House. The action of the Speaker in hiding the five parliamentary fugitives annoyed the King and probably the aristocratic members of the House of Lords. Charles, in fact, ended up being deposed and killed for his alleged intransigence. Since then, no British monarch has stepped foot into the chambers of the House of Commons. Rather, addresses to the two houses of parliament have been held in the House of Lords.

Dimeji Bankole, House of Representatives speaker

Indeed, since then and even last Wednesday when the Queen visited parliament, a member of the House of Commons by tradition is held captive inside Buckingham Palace to guarantee the safety of the monarch inside the parliamentary building. Interestingly, while Tafida was awaiting the royal entry of Her Majesty last Wednesday, a telephone call was put through to him by some members in the Nigerian Senate and he narrated to them his innocent observations. His experience was transmitted to many senators who there and then took a decision that they, too, would not go to the chamber of the House of Representatives for the traditional budget presentation by the President scheduled for the following day. All these happened on Wednesday.

The Nigerian senators were further emboldened by an encounter during a trip by a joint National Assembly delegation to Canada. The delegation including elements in the Senate and House leadership were told that the joint sittings of the Canadian House of Commons and House of Lords are traditionally held  in the chambers of the House of Lords. When one member of the delegation noted that the chamber of the House of Lords was too small and would not take everybody, the Nigerian delegation was told that members of the House of Commons who do not find seating place were compelled to stand during such joint sessions.

Among the Nigerians present and who heard the comments was the deputy speaker of the House of Representatives, Alhaji Usman Bayero Nafada. Nafada may have kept mum but for some senators on the trip it was a quiet vindication of their part of the quiet battle for supremacy between the two chambers of the National Assembly. Nafada was himself central to the open battle that commenced last January. Nafada as deputy speaker of the House of Representatives led the walkout of 43 members of the House delegation from the retreat for the National Assembly Joint committee on Constitution Review (JCCR) last January. The JCCR retreat in Minna, Niger State, was boycotted by the House members on the excuse that the deputy speaker was designated as deputy chairman of the JCCR instead of co-chairman as he desired.

The chairman of the JCCR and deputy president of the Senate, Senator Ike Ekweremadu, and other senators, surprised at the demand for equality, rebuffed Nafada and the other House members, a development that has till now stifled the efforts of the JCCR. House members say that their insistence on the designation of Nafada as co-chairman of the JCCR was to secure the sanctity of the work of the committee. They allege that in the past when the deputy speaker was designated as deputy chairman that the contributions of the House to the joint committee were thrown away.
“What came out of the two past joint committees? Nothing!,” one member of the House of Representatives told Sunday Vanguard at the weekend. “That is why we are insisting on equality this time so that the work we do will not be taken for granted as was done in the past.” The quest for equality is allegedly even more fanned by Speaker Dimeji Bankole and some Reps who some senators say are bent on exerting superiority on senators and the Senate president.
Example is given of several times when the Senate president made direct efforts to reach the Speaker on phone and his calls were ignored. Sometimes, it is alleged Senator Mark made indirect efforts through those close to Bankole to draw his attention but such efforts were rejected.

Demonstrable posture

What Sunday Vanguard has been able to piece together is interesting. It was learnt that at the height of the move to remove Patricia Etteh as speaker of the House of Representatives and the ensuing campaign for her replacement, Bankole’s mantra to his colleagues was that he would ensure a parity of some of the conditions which had hitherto placed the House members as second fiddle. In fact, as a demonstrable posture, Bankole led members of the House to push for a parity in the pay of legislators. President Yar’Adua, it was reliably gathered turned down the request. At a point when members of the House even attempted to insert into the budget, provisions and expenses which would ensure such payment parity, President Yar’Adua turned it down.

Again, pushing the agenda of parity, but this time with a view to ridiculing members of the Senate, there was an unwritten agreement that the 2009 budget would be expeditiously passed by the National Assembly. The Senate and the House of Representatives were expected to just dot the ‘Is’ in the budget and cross the ‘Ts’. Members of the Senate went ahead to fast track process of passing the budget but once they did that, the leadership of the House of Representatives reneged and instead, insisted on working thoroughly on the 2009 budget.This made senators to look foolish, and this they did not like one bit. But whatever may have triggered the angst of the Senate president and senators not to go to the chambers of the House of Representatives was as such the culmination of several experiences between the two chambers, and was not immediately discernible.

David Mark, Senate president

Senate spokesman, Senator Ayogu Eze speaking on the plan of the Senate president to hold the joint session in the Senate chamber last Wednesday said: “It is the prerogative of the chairman of the National Assembly to decide the venue of the joint session and this year, he has decided that the joint session will take place in the red chamber and all the relevant authorities have been duly notified – The leadership of the House of Representatives and the National Assembly leadership including the Clerk of the National Assembly and the management. Every arrangement is being put in place to ensure that the president comes and makes a hitch free presentation of the 2010 Appropriation Bill.”

Answering a question on the capacity of the Senate chambers to accommodate the 360 members of the House of Representatives and 109 senators, Senator Eze said: “The red chamber is enough to accommodate everybody. We have enough seats in the chamber to take every body. And then the issue of venue is not a big deal because it is the prerogative of the chairman of the National Assembly to decide the venue. He can even decide that we go to the banquet hall of the House of Representative and his decision that the thing should hold here this year does not mean that next year it cannot go to any other venue provided that it is within the National Assembly complex.”
His counterpart in the House of Representatives, Rep. Eseme Eyibo, however, countered saying that convenience and capacity of the chambers of the House of Representatives dictate that the budget presentation should be done in the House. “Traditionally its always been in the House of Representatives, and that tradition is usually informed by the convenience of space and logistics. 360 members in the House of Reps, 109 senators, the president and his entourage, governors, chieftains of political parties, captains of industry, and members of the diplomatic corps are coming.
“So when I am talking about the convenience of logistics and space, it’s the tradition that the House of Reps

provides that space to accommodate that audience. And Senate has the capacity to accommodate less than 150. This means that to take 360 members in that kind of space with the president and his team and other stakeholders, for a matter as serious as a national budget, that’s number one issue in any governance practice. It shows that someone is trying to undermine the relevance and importance of the subject matter, which is the budget. Except the person wants to suggest that if not in the House of Representatives, let’s take it to Eagles Square or International Conference Centre, which of course is no longer going to be a legislative affair – it’s going to be a comedy or a bazaar.”
As predicted the face off led President Umaru Yar‘Adua to cancel the scheduled presentation of the budget on Thursday. The presidential adviser on National Assembly Matters Senator Mohammed Abba Aji traced the cancellation to the face off between both chambers. “Well it is not holding because we have a policy of non interference with respect to separation of power and you all know that there is a little house keeping left to be concluded that the National Assembly between the two chambers, so we are allowing them time to put their house together. I have not come here to discuss the problems of the two chambers. I do not want to speculate into that.

I am sure that they are capable of resolving their differences and it is not something that is new, this kind of thing happens in bicameral legislatures all around the world, so it is not something that they will not be able to put behind them, so while we are confident that they are capable of doing that very soon, we are nonetheless giving them time to do so.”

Answering a pointed question whether the budget was ready, he said: “I can tell you categorically because I am member of the presidential budget committee. The budget was ready long time ago, even the president’s speech is ready, and we do not need excuses such as this, besides if you look at the provision of section 81 of the constitution, it just says that the president shall cause to be prepared and be laid before each chamber of the national assembly, so we do not need excuses such as this. We are ready with the budget,” he affirmed.

Joint session

On efforts being made to resolve the dispute, he said: “Yes efforts are being made, both the party and our side we are trying to see that they take less time to resolve this.” The presidential adviser was taken up on the strict provisions of Section 81 of the constitution which requires the President to separately lay the proposals before each chamber of the National Assembly. Laying the budget or presentation of the budget before the National Assembly has come by convention. This has been the practice, this has been the tradition, so it is not something that we are refusing to do, it is something that we are allowing time for us to do so.”

Asked if the president’s health was up to the rigours of presenting the budget to the joint session, he said: “He is in perfect health, no doubt about that.” Inside a closed door session that day Senator Mark reportedly told his colleagues of his fruitless efforts the previous night to get Speaker Bankole to resolve the issue. One source said that Mark claimed to have made as much as twenty telephone calls to the Speaker without getting an answer. The national leadership of the PDP meanwhile on Thursday intervened into the dispute with an injunction to the Senate to follow tradition and receive the President in the House chambers.

National publicity secretary of the PDP after a meeting with the leaderships of the two chambers said: “Several Nigerians have also waded into the issue. Chief Anthony Anenih, the immediate past chairman of the Board of Trustees of the PDP in a letter to the Senate president and the Speaker of the House of Representatives enjoined the two men to seek understanding in the interest of the country and the party. We must help to continuously justify the mandate which our people in their majority gave to the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) to serve them for four years. I must add here that it would be an irony if a Legislature dominated by the PDP is the one seen to be undermining the capacity of a PDP Government to deliver on its mandate,” he said.