News Obiaks News

The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has cautioned the Nigerian Senate not to surrender its independence to the executive by passing bills and requests without statutory legislative scrutiny and oversights.
        The spokesperson for the party, Kola Ologbondiyan, in a statement on Sunday, November 24, said the caution became necessary following the comment credited to the Senate president, Senator Ahmed Lawan, that any request from President Muhammadu Buhari to the National Assembly is good for the nation, even without subjecting such requests to statutory legislative scrutiny. He said Lawan’s statement besides being unconstitutional amounts to relinquishing the statutory powers of checks and balances of the National Assembly. “This, our party notes will create an alarming impression that the present National Assembly has been annexed by the executive and reduced to a rubber-stamp legislature. “The statement by the Senate President has heavily detracted from the expected independence of the legislature. It is fast eroding the confidence Nigerians have on the Senate and the National Assembly, as true representatives of the people at the national level,” the PDP said. The PDP spokesperson noted that legislative checks are enshrined in the constitution to check the excesses of the executive as well as create room for democratic practices “Anything to the contrary is a direct suspension of our constitution, enthronement of dictatorship and a sidestepping of the legislative powers, which is capable of destroying the institution of the National Assembly," the party stated. “Moreover, legislative processes for statutory interfaces with other arms of government, particularly the executive, is governed by the constitution, laid down legislative rules, practices and conventions and not by the narrow-minded assumptions of any single individual." The PDP said as a symbol of the nation’s democracy the National Assembly is an institution that belongs to the people and not to any political party or group.