Senate Leader, Victor Ndoma-Egba, says the stability in the upper legislative chamber of the National Assembly needs to be maintained in order to move the nation forward. He said parliamentarians should be encouraged to stay on because the National Assembly is a peculiar arm of government where the institutional memory is made up of the aggregate memories of each member. Ndoma-Egba said this on Wednesday, shortly before he visited the Peoples Democratic Party secretariat in Calabar to pick the ‘Expression of Interest’ form to occupy the Cross River Central Senatorial District in the National Assembly for the fourth time. The senate leader, who stormed the party’s secretariat with huge crowd of supporters, also commended the leadership of the state PDP for clearing the doubts over issues of alleged zoning of slots in the state. He said, “I have been very consistent in the growth of the National Assembly as an institution. The NASS is a parliament, and parliament is a peculiar arm of government, where the institutional memory is made up of the aggregate memory of its members. If you want to determine the institutional memory of the parliament today, you bring the memory of each of its members together. “So, when we have a situation where there is always such massive haemorrhage, such massive erosion of membership of the NASS. It means that you are eroding the memory and capacity of the institution. That’s why elsewhere in the world, parliamentarians are encouraged to stay on because it stabilises the polity. “For me, it is nothing personal. We have managed to stabilise the polity during our own leadership. I have been in leadership since 2007 when Senator David Mark became senate president and we have seen stability in the senate. Why should we now leave and bring in instability when people are looking for stability so that the nation can move forward?” Ndoma-Egba said it would be wrong for Cross River State to trade off the position of the Senate Leader for personal interest, adding that it took the state over 30 years to ever get close to the position of senate president, once held by Dr. Joseph Wayas. He added, “David Mark is coming back for an unprecedented fifth term and his people recognises the advantages of his coming back. And the state, including the Governor Gabriel Suswam, has gone out openly to say this seat is not available because they know the benefit the seat brings to them.” In his response, the state PDP chairman, Mr. John Okon, said the party would conduct credible primaries for the tickets, adding that there would be transparency at all levels in the conduct of the party’s affairs. Copyright PUNCH. All rights reserved. This material, and other digital content on this website, may not be reproduced, published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed in whole or in part without prior express written permission from PUNCH. Contact: editor@punchng posted on October 09, 2014 at 12:30AM Send an email to Joseph T. Obagbemisoye 08140584469 or 08086797418 Like JTNNG on facebook facebook/jtnng91 View Joseph T. Obagbemisoyes profile on facebook facebook/jtob91 Follow @jtob91 and get followed also jtnng.blogspot/
Posted on: Thu, 09 Oct 2014 00:18:50 +0000
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