The independence of
local governments has been a subject of debate for a long time now with many
looking onto the National Assembly to address the problem through a review of
the existing law in the constitution. But Senate Leader, Sen Mohammed Ali Ndume
said some powerful governors who prefer to continue to control the Joint
Account, were blocking efforts to achieve autonomy for local government
administration in the country.
Ndume who represents
Borno South in the senate in this interview with some journalists spoke on
various issues.
How would you react
to the criticism against the 8th National Assembly that it is promoting bills
that seek to protect members’ interest?
There are two issues
that could make some Nigerians feel this way. One is the issue of pension to
presiding officers of the National Assembly and it is on record that some of us
opposed that. But this is democracy. It is a process that I feel the presiding
officers of the National Assembly is just one among all equal and therefore,
they are not supposed to be entitled to pension. But I am of the view that
anybody that stayed in the National Assembly consecutively for the period of 16
years; that is four terms should be considered for pension because even by the
civil service rule, if you work for 16 years, you will be entitled to pension
and those that fall by the way are given severance allowance. My proposal which
did not fly is that instead of that, any member that served for four terms
should be entitled to pension and the severance allowance which that pension
enjoys should be deducted from his pension on pro-rata basis.
So, you end up
giving him a small amount. For example, if I have collected severance allowance
for the 1st, 2nd and 3rd terms and by the time I’m entitled to collect pension,
my pension will now be determined by the amount less of my severance that I
have been paid. But the proposal that the principal officers should now be
enjoying pension like president, governors, chief judge, passed through. Even
when the constitution review committee met recently to now review or update the
motions/amendments proposed in our Lagos Retreat, I still stood on my ground
and canvassed that my proposal be reconsidered and I am still going to argue
that till the end. Even if I don’t get my wish through, at least, I will have
my say and this is the beauty of democracy. Remember even the proposal has to
go to all the 36 states of the federation and 24 states must endorse it before
it becomes law.
The second issue is
the recent amendment to the act establishing the Code of Conduct Bureau and
Code of Conduct Tribunal. This bill did not emanate from the Senate but House
of Representatives. Our responsibility is to concur. In the 8th senate, I
proposed that instead of leaving any bill either coming from the House to
suffer passage because we did not concur, we now say we dedicated every
Thursday to the consideration of bills especially those that are concurrent so
that we can look at it holistically to either agree or disagree. That was why
it was placed on the order paper.
During our debate,
we came to a stage that emotion came to bare and when emotion is on display,
judgment is impaired. I then moved the motion that it should be stepped down to
another legislative day so that people can calm down. As far as I’m concerned,
there is no big deal about the whole thing. Laws are not made for an
individual. The Senate is not about Saraki and Saraki is not the Senate. He is
the Senate president and not senators’ president. We cannot and it very insulting
to us for anybody to say we’re doing the bid of the Senate president because
many of us are fit to be the Senate president. Beside, everybody knows that
laws are not passed in retrospective. If you make a law today, it does not
affect or invalidate the previous laws. Even if this law will be in effect, it
will not be of use now to the Senate president or whoever.
There are two
critical things that the bill seeks to do. It seeks to reduce the age which is
what is in the law now for the chairman of the Code of Conduct Bureau from 50
to 30 years. I was personally in support of that ab initio, that if somebody
can be a member of the House of Reps at the age of 30 and senator at the age of
35, then I see nothing wrong with such age becoming the chairman of the bureau.
But two of our members put up an argument that you need an elderly person with
experience as chairman of the bureau to deal with issues under its
jurisdiction. With this argument, I realized it matters and I shifted ground
from my initial position to join the proponents of 50 years as it were in the
law. There and then, we rejected the proposal of the House of Reps which says
the age should be 35 years. The second issue here is that of number. Currently,
the number of members of the Code of Conduct is two and unless they agree on an
issue jointly, there may not be problem. But if they disagree, then there won’t
be judgment. Supposing one of the judges in the case involving Sen Saraki for
instance now says the accused is innocent and the other says no, he is guilty.
Then what will happen? There will be impasse and that is why we’re advocating
that the number be increased to five and that the minimum number of judges to
sit at the tribunal should be three. The essence is that if two judges are not
there, the three other judges can decide on a case before the tribunal. If
three judges decide, the chairman can break the tie in case of such impasse in
verdict. This is the thinking and it passed.
The other one that
generated controversy is the subsistence law of the act which is not the
responsibility of the National Assembly. I stood my ground here because I
believe we cannot go into the nitty gritty of the tribunal. That is when you
establish the tribunal, you don’t make laws to say the directors should do ABC,
the years they will spend before moving them to the next level or that you
issue them query when they are late or did not do their job. These are laws
that are called subsistence laws of the land. The final issue is the
confirmation of the tribunal judges. That is, their appointment ought to be
confirmed by the National Assembly as it is with that of the ministers or heads
of government organizations or agencies. I think what I will say is that the
8th Senate has not been very fortunate with the media. The bill in contention
went through the House of Reps but the press didn’t notice or raise any issue
about it until it came to the Senate. Now since it is contentious, there is a
problem because we do not concur in harmony with the resolution of the House of
Reps. Even if we did, it will still get to the table of the president and Mr
President can decide not to veto it and when it comes to the Senate like that,
we need two third to veto it.
Some Nigerians are
wondering why the President is seeking the National Assembly’s approval for
about $30 billion external loan to finance some capital projects while his
government says it has recovered huge sum of money from its series of
corruption probe. Don’t you think the recovered money would have been used for
the said infrastructural development rather than borrowing?
People are
exaggerating the situation. First, all the money recovered are not Federal
Government money yet. Until the court so declare and sometimes up to Supreme
Court level, it is the money in the custody of the government but does not
belong to it yet. Even if it is now declared that it belongs to the government,
it must go to consolidated account for distribution to the three tiers of
governments. Even when that is done again, the money must be appropriated by
the National Assembly. So where is the money? This is what many Nigerians
should understand.
Why is the local
government autonomy becoming difficult to achieve or is the National Assembly
not favourably disposed to its reforms and development at the local level?
No, the National
Assembly’s disposition on the local government autonomy should be clearly
understood. I’ve been a member of the National Assembly committee on
constitutional review three times. Consecutively, I was a member in the 6th
assembly, 7th and now I am also a member in the 8th assembly. We proposed the
independence of the local government administration in the 6th and 7th
assemblies but the proposal did not fly. We’re trying again in the 8th assembly
and I just hope it will fly this time around. The decision is actually coming
from the state level. The state governors are in control and some people just
believe the state governments should be in control of the local governments.
But I am one of those who believe in the independence of the local governments
completely though not everybody can speak the way I do on the matter. Governors
are very powerful in this case and most of them want to be in control and will
do everything possible to ensure their position is maintained on the matter
while some don’t really care. Joint account is the problem and it is the main
reason why some of these governors won’t want autonomy for the local
government. It is being abused in some states but aside from that, other states
including FCT have no problem with the Joint Account thing. For example in FCT
where there is a minister with four municipals, their monies are paid to them
as soon as allocation is ready. This is how it should be done but a situation
where you have about 500 local governments under caretakers is a big problem
and not healthy for our democracy and development.
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