The Senate on Wednesday, June 24, 2015, rejected attempts by
Senators of the All Progressives Congress (APC) to compel it to accept and
adopt nominations sent to it by the leadership of the ruling party on the
composition of majority positions in the Upper Legislative Chamber.
The chamber at plenary ruled that a letter
from the APC National Chairman, John Oyegun, in which the party nominated four
persons to occupy the remaining four top leadership positions in the Upper
Chamber ran contrary to its rule and could not be read by the President of the
Senate, let alone being adopted.
Senate also adopted its 2015 Standing
?Rule and declared all amendments therein as valid.
The decisions were consequent upon a
motion sponsored by Senator Gbenga Ashafa (Lagos) seeking to compel the Senate
President, Bukola Saraki, to recognise and read Oyegun’s letter.
The letter nominated Senator Ahmed Lawal
for the position of Senate Majority Leader; George Akume for Deputy
Majority Leader; Olusola Adeyeye as Chief Whip and Abu Ibrahim as Deputy Whip.
Citing rule 28(1) of the Senate Standing
Order, Gbenga had argued that Oyegun’s letter was proper because, principal
officers should be nominated by the majority.
Ashafa said: “Yesterday, most of the media
houses carried a letter that was written by the Chairman of our great party,
the APC, and we were expecting that that letter which has been received in your
office will be read in order to see to the resolution of the party leadership
tussle.
“I believe that that letter should have
been read to the hearing of all senators here present. Perhaps that will be the
solution to the leadership tussle in the Senate”.
However, his argument prompted Senator
Bala Ibn Na’alla (APC- Kebbi) to rise and make contrary submissions on the
matter urging the Senate to ignore Ashafa’s position.
Na’alla stated that the rule of the Senate
?had no provision that its principal officers to be nominated by a political
party.
He explained that what was allowed by the
Senate Rule was for the Principal officers ?to emerge from the party that had
majority in the Senate not that the party should nominate leaders for the
Senate.
Ruling on the matter, Saraki simply
declared: “I have listened to Senators Ashafa and Na’ala. Going by the rules
and what has been said earlier, I think I will just note what Senator Ashafa
has said and we will leave the matter as that. And in that case, I rule that out
of order.”
The Senate on Wednesday ?ratified the
amendment made to its standing rule after initial disagreements among members.
Senator Kabiru Marafa (Zamfara) had drawn
the attention of senators to what he called serious breach of the Senate Rule
through illegal amendment of the Rule.
He said that the 8th Senate had been
operating an amended version of the 2011 rule called “Rule 2015″ without a
valid amendment process as dictated by the Rules.
Marafa contended that there was never a
time the 7th Senate amended the rule to include secret balloting as contained
on the 2015 version.
Again in quick response to Marafa’s
submission, Deputy Senate President, Ike Ekweremadu, explained how the 2015
rule came into being.
He said: “I would like to offer
explanation to my friend, Senator Marafa. He’s just four years old in this
Senate. Some of us have been here for 12 years. From 1999 till date, this
Senate has come up with its own rules.”
Senate President Saraki, ruling on the
matter said: “Distinguished Senator Marafa raised a Point of Order. And I think
there are two issues he raised in his point. One, there’s only one rule
book before us. That is Senate Standing Order 2015 (as amended).
“The second issue you raised about 9th of
June where by virtue of our actions, I will refer you again to Order 53 (6)
which says that it shall be out of order to attempt to reconsider any specific
question of which the Senate has come to a conclusion during the current
session.
“And bringing that matter again goes in
contrary to Rule 53 (6). On this note, I will have to unfortunately rule you
out of order on that matter.”
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