Mark, Bankole And National Assembly Politics

By Taiwo Adisa

Bankole and Mark The President of the Senate, Senator David Mark, is one politician who needs little or no introduction in many circles. He has been around for a long time. As one of the few products of the military to make it to the height of democratic governance, the man can be said to be one who has seen and participated actively in the making of two worlds. By virtue of his being the number one man in the Senate, he is the chairman of the National Assembly and as well the nation’s number three citizen.

The nation’s number four man, the Speaker of the House of Representatives, comes directly behind Mark in order of protocol.

He is the Vice Chairman of the National Assembly and the head of the lower chamber of the National Assembly. Unlike Mark, who has been on the seat since June 5, 2007, Bankole came in on November 1, 2007, nearly six months into the ongoing Sixth Session of the National Assembly, shortly after the first Speaker of the Session, Hon. Patricia Etteh, was shoved aside in the wake of the scandal surrounding the renovation of her official residence.

But besides the obvious differences noticeable in their ages, experience and political exposure, there are marked differences between the duo that have affected the running of the Assembly in recent times.

In The Beginning
At the start of the current session of the National Assembly in June 2007, there was a near perfect relationship between the House of Representatives and the Senate. The nation’s constitution recognizes a bi-camera legislature, which operates from within the same dome. The Senate, comprising 109 members and headed by the President of the Senate is regarded as the upper legislative chamber in view of the demarcation of constituencies, and assignment of responsibilities by the Constitution.

The Constitution guarantees that there will be three Senators from each state of the federation, notwithstanding the size of that state. The constituencies of the House of Representatives are determined in relation to population and number of local governments in a state. It thus means that the constituency of a Senator is bigger than that of a member of the House of Representatives. The fact that the Senate is solely granted the power to screen presidential nominees, chairmen and members of boards of parastatals, agencies, ambassadorial nominees and ministers as well as nominees into the Supreme Court clearly shows the difference in legislative authorities of the two chambers.

The President of the Senate as the chairman of the National Assembly presides over Joint Sessions of the two chambers, though the sittings are usually held in the lower chambers, largely because the lower chamber is more spacious (which has now made it a sort of convention). Where there are issues of joint interest, the Senate President remains the first point of contact.

The situation has largely been so since the inception of the National Assembly. There have been very scant memories of clashes between the two chambers. In fact, before the current session, the two chambers operated like Siamese twins. Bills passed at the lower chamber would be made to go through easily at the upper chamber. Many bills were made to pass through what the legislators called “concurrence”, once it had been duly passed by one chamber. A number of bills enjoyed that privilege during the last tenure.

On a number of occasions, the upper chamber had intervened in crisis in the lower chamber. Indeed, the latest example of that was when Mark met with members of the House of Representatives at the beginning of the crisis that rocked Hon. Etteh’s tenure, urging them to ensure due process.

With the coming of Bankole as Speaker, however, things have not been the same between the Senate and the House.

When Bankole emerged Speaker in November 2007, Mark was said to have immediately put a call through to him and asked for his cooperation. The duo later exchanged visits and explored ways of working together. But that seems to be the end of the cordiality as many Senators were said to have warmed Mark to beware of the Ogun lawmaker’s penchant to see Senators as equals with Representative members.

A section of the lower chamber suddenly realized that it was wrong to ascribe to the House the tag of a Lower House and that the two chambers were part of a bicameral legislature.

The members of the House also claimed that Senators enjoyed too many benefits above them and that it was time to redress this. Somehow, the Speaker of the House has come to signify the face of these agitations and it is said that he once nearly walked out of a meeting with the Senate President in attendance when some issues relating to the Senate and the House were raised.

Unfolding Scenario
Since Bankole has decided to carry the banner of parity between the Senate and the House, it is certain that he is bound to incur the wrath of the Senators. The parity song has so badly affected the relationship between some Senators and members of the House that they barely tolerate themselves again. This has been cited as one of the reasons for the delay in the passage of the 2008 amendment budget.

While members of the House passed the amended budget before they went on recess in July, the Senate could not do so.

Senators, who had embarked on their annual recess two weeks earlier than the House members had to come back in August to look into the budget passed by the Reps. But they were shocked to see the work done by many of the Rep members on the N60 billion constituency projects approved by President Umaru Yar’Adua. Many of the lawmakers in the House merely accommodated their state’s share of the funds in their constituencies, leaving the Senators to start work all over again. That was why the Senators had to pass the budget with the same figure (N2.4 trillion) but still declared that a clean copy of the budget was not ready yet.

One area that has characterized the hazy relationship between the House and the Senate is the management of the procedure for amending the 1999 Constitution.

At the start of the whole show, it was agreed that there would be a joint committee of the two chambers to handle the matter just as it had always been.

A budget of N1 billion had been allocated to the amendment project and everyone was waiting on the management of the National Assembly to put in place the implementation committee that would oversee the amendment.

Senators and the management were, however, shocked to notice a sort of vacillation from the Representatives. There were claims that the two chambers should do their amendment separately so that they can later harmonize. Some meetings between the management and officials of the two chambers have shown that the Speaker is further ready to show the discontent of some of his loyalists to what has been termed the “overbearing presence of the Senate”.

Thus, while the inauguration of the Joint Committee was scheduled to hold in early September, the programme had to be put off following the lack of cooperation by Bankole and some key members of his team.

Last week, a chanced meeting between Bankole and an influential member of the Senate at the presidential villa was said to have set the tone for the renewed optimism that the event would eventually hold.

It was gathered that the Speaker had assured the Senator that he was backing down his opposition to the inauguration of the joint committee and the date was fixed for Thursday, October 9.

Just as preparations were reaching top gear, however, news filtered to the management of the National Assembly that Bankole had again mandated his colleagues who were to serve on the Joint Committee not to attend the inauguration. The plan has since been put off indefinitely.

A source said that the planning committee wants to ensure that all members of the Joint Committee who have been named by the two chambers, attend the inauguration so as not to start on a wrong note.

One of the latest complaints has to do with the claim said to have emanated from the House that there has to be in place a bill before the legislators can embark on the amendment. National Assembly sources have said that the procedure for amendment has been set out long before the current set of lawmakers came on board.

Sources said that the same procedure was adopted by the last National Assembly, whose attempt to amend the constitution failed in May 2006.

Rather than put in a bill before the inauguration, the lawmakers have always put in place the Joint Committee after which they will go round the country for memoranda and then use the items collated from the memoranda to prepare a bill for the amendment of the Constitution.

A source said that while the Speaker had spearheaded the move against the inauguration, his deputy, Hon. Usman Bayero Nafada, had been working with the management team and the Deputy Senate President, Senator Ike Ekweremadu, in preparing for the inauguration, but the masterstroke came when the Speaker’s men called to say that they were not at home yet with the plan.

“The planning committee thought that with the decision of the Deputy Speaker to team up with the plans for the inauguration, they could go ahead, but it appears that the Speaker has insisted that the issues should be looked at again,” a source said.

It is true that the Senate President and the Speaker have both denied the existence of rifts between them. But it is obvious to watchers of the National Assembly that the required cordiality between the two offices is lacking. That has been responsible for the differences in the calendar being operated by the two chambers. The presiding and principal officers’ meetings which should encompass leaders of the two chambers have also been few and far-between.

It is hoped that the planned constitution amendment will not be the biggest victim of the needless row.