15042019 - North now land of bandits, says Northern Elders Forum

Vanguard, MONDAY APRIL 15, 2019 — 43
NINTH NASS LEADERSHIP:
APC’s strategy to
check PDP
•Election is abnormal situation –
APC publicity scribe
•Gbajabimila sponsors Muslims
colleagues to Hajj
By Levinus Nwabughiogu
ABUJA — Crisis is
imminent in the National
Assembly as members-elect of
the Senate and the House of
Representatives from
opposition parties may not be
given the opportunity to
participate in the election of
their presiding officers in June
when the 9th Assembly will be
proclaimed, Vanguard can
authoritatively report.
This is because, the ruling All
Progressives Congress, APC
has perfected plans to
“produce” and not elect the
leaders.
This came as an aspirant to
the office of the Speaker of the
House, Hon. Femi Gbajabimila
is said to have upped his
campaign strategies by
sponsoring at least two Muslim
colleagues from each state to
Saudi Arabia for Umrah.
This is aside speculations that
one of the speakership aspirants
doled out N250,000 to each
member-elect during the just
concluded induction ceremony
in Abuja.
APC says it had the number
to elect the officers of the two
chambers without recourse to
the opposition especially the
Peoples Democratic Party, PDP.
Besides, the party is also
working assiduously to prevent
the nomination of any memberelect
for the available positions
on the floor on the inauguration
day unless the ones selected
previously selected by the party.
Vanguard’s investigations,
yesterday, revealed that the
party is foreseeing a situation
where the PDP may hijack the
process and re-enact the 2015
scenario where it shared
positions with the PDP in the
person of Senator Ike
Ekweremadu who became the
Deputy Senate President as
against the party’s choice.
More so, the party does not
also want the emergence of any
member as either senate
president, deputy, House
Speaker and deputy House
speaker other than the
individuals selected by its
leadership.
Constitutional position on
NASS leadership
But the proposed method is
seen to be at variance with the
letters and provision of the 1999
constitution (as
amended).
It is also seen
to be a way of
circumventing, for instance, the
standing orders of the House
of Representatives.
Section 50 (1) of the 1999
constitution provides that the
members of the two chambers
shall elect for themselves
leadership.
Standing Orders on House
Leadership
Similarly, the standing orders
of the House of
Representatives, section 2 of
9th edition (reprinted March,
23, 2016) gave a detailed steps
of how the Speaker and the
Deputy shall emerge.
It states thus: “Election of
Presiding Officers
2(1) The election of the
Speaker shall take precedence
over any other business and no
motion for adjournment or any
other motion shall be
entertained while it is
proceeding and the House shall
continue to meet, if necessary,
Continued from page 42
so that it is easier for them to
detect and have real intelligence
of what is going on in those
areas.
We are not saying that the
state police must earn the same
salary or have the same
structure as the federal police.
They all have their duties,
which prescribed in the
constitution. In Russia, and
USA, there are areas the federal
police do not intervene except
if invited.
On the military
The military as we have seen
now have bastardised our
democracy. What does the army
have to do with an election?
They go to voting centres,
collation centres, kidnap the
officers and tell them what to do
and write results for them. The
military are for external
aggression. They should
maintain their duties.
It is quite clear to most people
that the Nigeria situation is
dysfunctional. It is not suited for
good governance and progress.
On the 2019 budget
The 2019 budget is already a
beyond its ordinary daily time of
adjournment, notwithstanding
any Standing or Special Order,
until a Speaker is declared
elected
(2) A member-elect may,
before taking the Oaths
prescribed in the Seventh
Schedule to the Constitution,
take part in the elections of
Speaker and Deputy Speaker.
3) The election shall be
conducted in the following
manner:
(a) A member-elect,
addressing the clerk shall
propose another member-elect
with legislative experience as
member of the National
Assembly to be Speaker and
shall move that such memberelect,
“Do take the Chair as
Speaker of the House of
Representatives”.
(b) A member-elect when
nominated and seconded shall
failure. It failed the day it was
being presented. How can you
sustain a budget with a foreign
borrowed money to be used in
funding recurrent expenditure
when you have a lot of capital
expenditure? Recurrent
expenditure is payment of
salaries, overhead, allowances
and it runs into trillions of naira.
It fuels corruption. It is capital
expenditure that brings in
money.
The international financial
institutions are warning
Nigeria that it is not
sustainable; very soon we
cannot raise any foreign loan.
The truth we should tell
ourselves is Nigeria is still in
recession.
What is the way out?
There are three things that
can make Nigeria start moving
forward and develop. One is
civility; two is education; and
three is technology.
When you are civil and
educated, you are able to listen
to the other person’s opinion
and if the opinion is superior to
yours, you adopt it for common
good. So, education is the
biggest investment you can
inform the House whether he
accepts or declines the
nomination
(c) the member-elect so
nominated may address the
House for a maximum period
of 5 minutes for the purpose of
(b) above.
(e) If more than one memberelect
is proposed as Speaker,
the Clerk shall, after the second
nomination, if any is made and
seconded and accepted or
declined, ask, “Are there any
further nominations?”, and if
there are no further
nominations, the Clerk shall
say, “ I declare the nominations
closed”.
(f) When two or more
members-elect are nominated
and seconded as Speaker and
where the two or more accept,
the election shall be conducted
as follows:
(i) By electronic voting; or
How Nigeria can catch up with US, China — Ikokwu
make in your child. It is
education you use to enhance
technology.
Technology, artificial
intelligence is a modern
instrument of life, which
Nigerians have to absolutely
embrace. When we have
education, civility, technology/
artificial intelligence in a
restructured situation,
Nigerian economy will start
growing at six to seven per cent
per annum.
China did it and in 40 years
were able to catch up with the
Americans and Russians. They
are now in space; they landed
behind the moon where no other
country has landed and they are
now telling us what is
happening behind the moon.
They are going to Mars and are
telling us there are some kind of
living beings in Mars.
We have Nigerians who are
as industrious and hard working
as the Chinese. It is a function
of providing them with the
template and ideal situation to
enable them perform. That is
why we talk about a better
governance system. If you go to
Sokoto and Kano and take 1,000
(ii) Voting by secret ballot which
shall be conducted by the Clerksat-Table,
using the list of the
members-elect of the House,
who shall each be given a ballot
paper to cast his vote, with the
proposer and seconder as tellers.
(iii) The clerk of the House shall
submit the result of the voting to
the Clerk to the National
Assembly who shall then declare
the member-elect who has
received the highest number of
votes as Speaker-Elect
Election abnormal situation –
APC spokesperson
When contacted on the matter,
the National Publicity Secretary
of the ruling party, Malam Lanre
Issa-Onilu said that the election
on the floor was an abnormality.
According to him, the normal
process is for the party to
produce a choice candidate for
the positions get the members to
formerly endorse them without
necessarily the inputs of the PDP.
He said: “Before we get to the
National Assembly, the ideal
thing is that we would have
concluded on who is going for
what and we have the majority.
So, we are producing. When we
get there, election is a formality.
It is just to fulfil all righteousness
because they don’t have the
number to upstage our own
arrangement. So, right from our
own end, we have concluded that
we have produced them here.
We are only taking them to go
and follow the routine.”
Reminded what the House
rules stated, Onilu said “That
itself is an abnormal situation
because the ideal thing is that if
you are a member of a party, all
struggles must be within your
own party structure. ''
almajaris and go to a state where
there is quality education and
educate them for 10 years with
the other children, you will
discover that some of them are
sleeping giants.
If we refuse to restructure and
implement good governance
system, we will keep moving
backwards until we end up in
what they call irredeemable
trajectory. If you end up in
irredeemable trajectory, there
is nothing that can pull you out,
the country will disintegrate
because not all Nigerians want
to be as backward as others.
There are one or two areas in
the North, South, West, East,
Middle-Belt that want to move
forward into the skies. You
cannot call everybody in
Nigeria idiots or imbeciles or
characterise them by their
religion, faith and tribe.
When we say these things it is
for our children- born and
unborn so that Nigeria will be a
guiding light of Africa.
How can it be that at the
moment all the ECOWAS
countries are growing at a
greater percentage than
Nigeria?