By Emman Ovuakporie

It was solidarity unlimited as All Progressive Grand Alliance, APGA, Reps from Anambra State two Thursdays ago relocated from Abuja to the state to support Mrs. Uche Ekwunife in a re-run election that she eventually clinched.

Ekwunife set the House reeling with laughter barely five minutes after she was sworn in again.  While supporting a motion, she introduced herself as one of the oldest serving members of the House on Tuesday. Throughout the re-run election all the APUGA men were visibly missing from the House as they ensured that one of their own returned to the House.

Speaker Aminu Tambuwal while congratulating the ‘new comer’ had said “congratulations and welcome back despite the fact that you defeated my great party the PDP.” Ekwunife defeated Ferdinand Nwankwo in a re-run conducted in 15 wards in the Anaocha/Njikuka/Dunukofia Federal Constituency.

Reps kill Bill to Amend Election Petition Act
Member of Representatives did not hide their hatred for an attempt to further strengthen the Election Petition Act last Wednesday as it was sent to the mortuary to decompose forever.

Ekwunife... winner of the re-run

The Reps had rejected the Bill for an Act to alter the provisions of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria 1999(as amended) (second alteration Act 2010). The bill sought to repeal Section 76(2) of the constitution and hence set a time frame for dispensing with election petitions.

The said Section states interlia that: “The date mentioned in subsection (1) of this section shall not be earlier than sixty days before and not later than the date on which the House stands dissolved, or where the election to fill a vacancy occurring more than three months before such date; not later than one month after the vacancy occurred.”

Leading the debate on the general principles of the bill, Deputy Minority House Leader, Rep Suleiman Abdulrahman Kawu, ANPP Kano, had argued that the essence of the second alteration act was to ensure that the judgment of tribunals are delivered within a specific period of time.

Rep Fort Ifeanyi Dike also noted that elected officials tend to use the power of incumbency to their advantage and to the disadvantage of their opponents. “When somebody gets into office, he employs the resources of that office to remain in power and tries to even influence the judicial process.”

Rep Femi Gbajabiamila in his contribution explained that the amendment was necessary as it sought to give bite to the recent Supreme Court judgment which declared that election cases must be dispensed with within a period of 180 days.

“If without this amendment one can stay in this House for a year and then the court now nullifies ones election, it stands to reason that bills or contributions that such person would have made here are illegal.

Even the monies disbursed to you are illegal because you cannot put something on nothing. Let us amend it to give effect to the 180 days already stated by the Supreme Court”, he said. But other Reps thought otherwise as they strongly opposed the position of other speakers on the Bill.

Rep Mohammed Asema Sadiq throwing his weight against the bill noted that since the Supreme Court has set a time frame of 180 days, it would amount to a waste of energy and resources to try to amend the section. “If the Supreme Court has said 180 days, I want to submit that that is the law.

It said all cases pertaining to election matters should be disposed of within 180 days. I therefore want to submit that this bill is no longer relevant.” Also Simon Arabo told the House to tread with caution since the constitution abhors a vacuum.

He argued that since the Supreme Court had ruled that governors and the president cannot spend more than four years, there will be anarchy when the tenure of the executive and legislative arms of government expires and election cases are still pending in court.

Eventually when the life of the bill was put to a voice vote, those against its passage seemed to be in the majority but the Deputy Speaker, Emeka Ihedioha, who presided over the plenary conducted the vote for the second and third time and majority of the members still ensured that the bill died.

AC N LAWMAKERS KICK AGAINST JONATHAN OVER FRESH BUDGET
Action Congress of Nigeria Representatives, AC N, on Thursday vowed to resist any attempt by the leadership of the House of Representatives to cargo or smuggle in the new budget proposal submitted by President Goodluck Jonathan without proper legislative actions.

Minority Leader, Femi Gbajabiamila who issued this threat at a press briefing expressed fears over the increasing debt profile of the country and the request for the approval of the National Assembly to borrow $7.9 billion loan for pipeline projects as proposed by President Goodluck Jonathan via a letter.

Jonathan in the letter read by Aminu Tambuwal, Speaker of the House of Representatives requested for the downward review of the initial N4.7 trillion budget proposal to N4.6 trillion.

Gbajabiamila observed that the presentation of the new budget proposal was unconstitutional and that the new budget proposal should have come by way of supplementary budget, stressing that “the constitution prescribes in section 81, that the President shall ‘lay his budget proposals on the floor of the House and it must be done during the fiscal year.

“This new proposal fails on both conditions. Not only can he not present budget proposals by way of a letter, he is time barred as it was not presented during the 2011 fiscal year which ended in December 2011. There is a reason behind every rule or law”, he added.

On the proposed loan, the AC N  lawmakers cautioned that the proposed facility would further increase the country’s debt profile.

Gbajabiamila said “we also want to address the issue of the $7.9 billion to fund some pipeline projects which was never part of the 2012 to 2015 medium term expenditure framework. This figure translates to approximately N1 trillion. Our foreign debt profile currently stands at about $6 billion, when you add another $7.6 billion we are talking of almost $14 billion which takes us back to Obasanjo’s days.

This is outside the domestic debt profile. By the time we slap another N5 trillion on the country, we would be indebted to the tune of N6 trillion. This year alone, N560 billion is to go to repayment of debt in a N4.7 trillion budget with only N1.3 trillion going to capital projects. As a caucus, we will be opposing this particular loan application and will encourage our colleagues on the other side of the aisle to do same.

Furthermore, it is time to put a debt ceiling legislation in place to avoid a spend thrift government throwing the nation into the kind of debt that we may never be able to get out of and that would leave future generations of Nigerians with a negative balance sheet.”