2015: APC Is A Gang-up, Will Split Soon — Ekweremadu The Deputy Senate President, Ike Ekweremadu spoke to select newsmen on political developments prelude to the 2015 general elections. He hit at the newly-registered All Progressive Congress (APC) describing the merger of the cocktail of major Nigerian opposition political parties as a soon-to-split “gang-up” against the ruling People’s Democratic Party (PDP). EDEGBE ODEMWINGIE was there for LEADERSHIP. Your Excellency, as Chairman of the Senate Constitution Review Committee, what is the latest on the National Assembly review exercise? As you are aware that the House of Representatives and the Senate have passed their versions of the current amendment of the constitution, and as the tradition and the law requires, we are going to set up a conference committee that comprises members of the Senate and Members of the House of Representatives and we are hoping that the conference committee will harmonize the positions of the House and the Senate, in terms of what has been passed, and then we will have a single document representing the views of the Senate and the views of the House. Once that is done, the conference committee is going to send the harmonized report of the constitution review vote back to the Senate and the House. Then we are going to go through the whole motion of voting for the items one after the other. It is only the items that are successful in getting the votes of two-thirds of the Senate and the House that will now be said to be the ones that have gone through the National Assembly successfully. Thereafter, we will now take that document to the state assemblies. Now, the State Assemblies will now vote item by item in respect of the product of the joint conference committee or the joint resolution of the House and the Senate. It is at that time, we will be able to see, which items will succeed and which will not, because it will now require a simple majority of two-thirds of the states, which is about 24 states for any of those items to be successfully amended. So, we hope that as soon as we resume from the recess, we will go into this next level, and then the voting and transmission to the states house of assembly. So, we are hopeful that before the end of the next quarter we will be done with this (constitution review). Sir, are we not racing against time with the constitutional amendment process as the 2015 general election draws nearer with the system steadily heating up? Remember when we started the constitution review process, I did say that by July the Senate would have passed that amendment, what is remaining now to me is not as challenging as what we have done. The rest are things we can conclude in a month or two. I think the major constraint we have is the issue of our vacation, which came after we had passed this. We (lawmakers) are coming back in September, as soon as we come back, am sure we will put everything in motion to ensure that we conclude this in the nearest future. On the ongoing controversy trailing the Senate vote on Section 29(4)(b) widely interpreted in many quarters as an endorsement of underage marriage, where is the Senate on that? I think we just made it controversial and unfortunately those who made it controversial never really knew that there is such a provision in the constitution and that is why they took it out of context. The so called agitators against that section were not the ones who suggested to us to amend it, we did ourselves and that was why most of them were reading it out of context. I saw some people, especially actors and actresses dramatizing the whole thing. Most of them did not even read the provision, they don’t know what it was all about. So, it was very embarrassing when I read all they were saying. The constitutional amendment follows a process, so when we start the next process, we will look at it. It is a dynamic thing, but I don’t think that is the greatest challenge we have now. As I said, we took the initiative to deal with it and we will continue to take the initiative to do the best for Nigeria. The National Assembly recently passed the 2013 Amended N4.98 trillion Budget. Has it been assented by the president? We (National Assembly) have sent it to the president for assent, I am not aware that it has been returned, probably it has been assented to. Sir, you are the Secretary of the National Planning Committee of the PDP convention. The party is in crisis. What is your take on the developments? Just like any other organization, we (PDP) have our challenges but for us they are not insurmountable, and the convention is part of the process of dealing with what we consider to be the challenges. I don’t see anything as out of the ordinary. PDP is a big party, once you have a big party you are going to have a lot of complex situations, so it is the ability to manage this complex situation that will determine how far you can go in the future. We are hopeful that we are going to surmount them. We are believing that we are going to resolve whatever challenges we have and work as a team ahead of 2015. By month end, we will put in place the new National Working Committee (NWC). So I am very optimistic that PDP will again win the presidency in 2015. What do you say about the All Progressive Congress (APC) challenge? We (PDP) are not worried about the APC, for us that makes the game more interesting. Before we used to contend with several parties and now we just only have one party to contend with and it makes the matter much easier for us. You know in Nigerian politics, gang-up never works. Well, you call it coalition I call it gang up. So, they will split and they will still come back to us in PDP and we will welcome them. What is the fate of the State of the Nation Bill? The president made some observations and returned it to us, and our colleagues were not conclusive in terms of how to deal with it. We have two options available to us. One, they over ride the president’s veto because they consider it as a veto, and then pass it again. The second is to bend over backward, look at those observations and then pass it again. So, this is what we are going to decide when we come back from recess. But the spirit of that bill is still alive and the need for it is still there for us and the purpose it will serve is still very germane so we are hopeful that we will deal with it as soon as we come back as well. It is becoming even more pressing that the bill be passed, so that the president will have the opportunity to tell Nigerians what is going on from time to time, as the bill will stipulate, and then the parliament will have opportunity of debate and make recommendations to him. In that way, you will be able to see parliamentary input in governance of this country in a more constructive manner
Posted on: Wed, 28 Aug 2013 06:04:23 +0000
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