SENATE leader Ndoma-Egba speaks on the National Conference, the Senate , governance and democracy in this interview with Sunday Sun in Abuja. How would you assess the senate in terms of legislative bills for this session that is running out? I have made the point again and again that the process of lawmaking is not a production line that you stand at the end of production line to see how many products have been churned out. You can’t compare the two processes. Lawmaking process is inherently and tediously slow. And it was designed to be that way because lawmaking is about processes. It is not about outcome. So, to assess the parliament by the number of bills it has passed is to mix the role of parliament. But having said so, I know that we have 187 bills in process and quite a number of them have been passed. I think we have done well in that regard given the inherently slow nature of the legislative process. A number of recommendations have been made by the National Conference including creation of more states. How do you think the imple mentation of such a recommendation will be possible in view of the position of the senate that see state creation as a difficult area to go? Let me state my position very clearly; the national conference was set up by Mr. President. It is an intervention by Mr. President; their recommendations logically will go to him. When Mr. President receives their recommendations, it is up to him who instituted the conference to decide what to do with the recommendations. So, I will not want to preempt what will happen to the recommendations. That will be for Mr. President to decide. But some Nigerians have argued that the National Assembly must have its input into the recommendations to give the process the needed legitimacy. Will there be need for the National Assembly to take a review of some of these recommendations be fore they eventually become legitimate? Let me still go back to the answer I just gave you. The National Conference was set up by Mr. President. If he decides it should come to the National Assembly, so be it. If he decides it shouldn’t come to the National Assembly, so be it. The ball will be squarely in the court of Mr. President. We cannot force his hand to send the report to the National Assembly. And to that extent, the recom mendation will still be valid even if it is not referred to the National Assembly? I don’t know what you mean by the recommendation will be valid. If the recommendation requires a law to back it up, how will it be valid with out the law? In other words, it must necessarily pass through the National Assembly. I don’t want to go into the dialectics. I have clearly stated my position. The person who set up the Conference will determine what to do with the outcome. But before the setting up of this Conference, the National Assembly had already started the process of amending of constitution. Will there be a meeting point between what they are doing and what you have done with the amendment of some of the sections of the constitution? The National Assembly is a creation of the constitution and the constitution defines the powers of the National Assembly. The exercise we engage in by way of amendment is an exercise that is conferred on the National Assembly by the constitution. It is a constitutional responsibility we are carrying out by amending the constitution. The National Conference on the other hand was set up by Mr. President. Their report will go to Mr. President. I don’t know how clear I can be on this. Your party, Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), won the Ekiti State governorship election with a landslide victory. But the national leadership of APC is still kicking saying photo chromic oracle was used in rigging the election. How do you see this argument? I am aware that quite a number of observers both local and international were in Ekiti to observe the election. And all of them agreed that the election was free and fair. Governor Kayode Fayemi, a complete gentleman and great democrat, has already conceded victory to PDP. Now, if APC is saying that there was scientific rigging, maybe it was the massive deployment of spiritual forces they are talking about. They have to establish the science behind it to convince the Nigerian people that everything they saw with their eyes is not correct. So, it is for them to establish how scientific the rigging was. But I think that when Governor Fayemi congratulated the incoming governor Fayose for his victory, I thought it was a remarkable turn in our politics for the better. I thought it was one great moment in our politics and that Nigeria could now start thinking of moving to the next level in our politics and our political conduct and etiquette. It is regrettable that APC is taking us back to where we prefer to have left. Are you expecting the same level of performance in the coming Osun State election holding next month? We are hoping that INEC with Ekiti State election has set a standard of transparency in the conduct of elections. What we expect is a process that is as transparent as what we saw in Ekiti. So, INEC has set new standard for itself and it cannot go below that standard. But there was also complaint about heavy deployment of security operatives and intimidation of their supporters. How will a soldier standing on the road know who is PDP or APC? The voting took place in the polling units. Were voters intimidated at the polling units? If they were, numerous observers there did not say so. Elections in Nigeria are still very challenging. But at least, everybody agreed that election in Ekiti went without any major incident. And that is attributable to the presence of security personnel. So, I don’t personally see anything wrong with it for as long as it is not alleged that the voters at the polling units were intimidated to vote in one way or the other. Was it equally right for leaders of the APC like Tinubu, Governor Amaechi and others who wanted to come to Ekiti to give support to their candidate to be turned back? The Electoral Act is very clear about who and who should be present at the polling booths. They were turned back a day to the election and not on the day of the election Campaigns are supposed to end a day before the election. If it was 24 hours to the election, it was assumed that campaigns had ended. Even at that, senator Musliu Obanikor was present in Ekiti State on the day of the election. I am not aware of that. It is an al legation. I am not aware. He was in Ekiti because I was there to monitor the election If you were there, it depends on when he got there. Did he get there 24 hours to the time? The tenure of your state governor is gradually running to an end. It is expected that you will want to take a shot at the exalted seat but you still prefer to come back to the senate. Why are you so much interested in legislative position rather than the executive? It is not about me, it is about de mocracy we are trying to deepen. One of the major problems of our democracy is the erosion of institu tional memory of the National As sembly. And the National Assembly symbolizes our democracy because if you remove the National Assembly we don’t have democracy any more. It ought to be the strongest of the institutions. But given our post independence political history, given the frequency with which the military intervened in our politics, and the consequence of each intervention being the abrogation of the National Assembly, the National Assembly has not had the opportunity of consistent growth unlike the executive and the judiciary that whether or not it was dictatorship or democracy they were always there and have manage to develop. Our own development as an institution has been in episodes. Each time the military went back, we came back and started all over again. To com pound the matters, each time there was election, we have more members not returning to the National Assembly than those returning. The National Assembly is a very peculiar institution. Yes, we have bureaucracy serving the National Assembly, but for want of a proper term, each member is a sovereign on his own. In my office, for instance, I have my staff who serve me, not the National Assembly. Whatever bill I am working on, they help me work on those bills. Whatever motions I am working on, they help me work on those motions. Whatever subjects I am researching into, they help me research into those subjects. Whatever records I am compiling, they help me compile the records. But the day I am going, I go with all of them with their experience unlike the executive that has a bureaucracy that survives after each office holder or the judiciary that has a very sophisticated archival system plus hierarchy of courts.
Posted on: Sun, 20 Jul 2014 05:12:42 +0000
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