Electoral Act: CNPP, ACN move against lawmakers

Electoral Act: CNPP, ACN move against lawmakers

News Nov 15, 2010 By Clifford Ndujihe
The Conference of Nigeria Political Parties, CNPP, and Action Congress of Nigeria, ACN, yesterday, described the proposed law that seeks to make Federal lawmakers members of the National Executive Committee,  NEC, of  their political parties as obnoxious and vowed to resist it.
CNPP National Publicity Secretary, Mr. Osita Okechukwu, said the insertion of S.87 in the Electoral Act “is self-serving and designed to undermine the Act. It is an obnoxious insertion, self-serving and designed to undermine the Electoral Act, the Constitution and indeed democracy.”
A bill for the insertion of the clause that would make chairmen and deputy chairmen of Senate and House of Representatives’ committees members of NEC passed through second reading on Tuesday in the Senate, and has majority support in the House of Representatives.
The CNPP scribe alleged that the federal legislators had, regrettably, been making laws for themselves, so as to perpetuate themselves in the National Assembly.
“Is it not paradoxical that the same NASS members wittingly rejected the core recommendations of the Uwais report which set an impeccable template and critical legal framework for free, fair and transparent election are today inserting obnoxious clause in the Electoral Act to protect themselves ?” he asked.
Speaking in like manner, the ACN in a statement by National Publicity Secretary, Alh. Lai Mohammed, said his party would “fight attempt by federal lawmakers to gate-crash into parties’ NECs” through the courts.
According to him, the attempt was a new low in the legislators’ continuous efforts to make laws in their interest rather than in the national interest.
Mohammed called on other political parties to also mount a legal challenge against “the obnoxious, self-serving, greedy and democracy-killing proposed insertion into the Electoral Act 2010.”
The party urged the organized labour, civil society organisations and political parties to march on the National Assembly to ensure such anti-democratic law is not passed.
ACN described the current National Assembly as the most expensive and anti people ever in Nigeria’s history, saying it is time to stop them from ruining the democracy that millions of Nigerians fought to entrench.
‘’Our legislators are the highest paid in the world, with those of Kenya a distant second. Yet, they never consulted us before padding their pay to such high levels. The widespread story is that each of them earns a million naira per day, except on weekends and public holidays!
This is not far from the truth, since each one smiles home with 45 million Naira per quarter, in a country where most citizens live on less than US$1 a day, and the minimum wage being fought for comes to US$4 per day!
‘’Add this to the fact that while it took 3% of the national budget to service the National Assembly in the Second Republic, the current National Assembly is gulping over 30% of the national budget, and one will get an idea of how this legislators are draining the economy.
If they dispute the figures quoted above, they should tell Nigerians what they earn and what percentage of the national budget is being used to service the National Assembly,’’ it said.
The party said the proposed law offends the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, stifles the ability of the parties to make their own constititutions and decide who attends their Exco and shows how those elected to serve the people cannot differentiate between the interest of one party, in this case the PDP with the majority in both chambers of the National Assembly, and the country.
‘’As far as the dominant PDP members of the National Assembly are concerned, the interest of their party is the same as the interest of the nation.
That is why there has been a cacophony of (PDP lawmakers’) voices defending the toxic law being planned, with barely a whimper from the probably overwhelmed or quietly acquiescing legislators from the other parties.
‘’In the process of defending this law, logic has been turned on its head, with the sponsors and their supporters claiming it will enrich internal_democracy in the parties and broaden their decision_making base. No one has talked about the fact that it will turn the NEC meetings of the parties into a jamboree/rally, with praise_singers in tow.
‘’It will also mean that the lawmakers would have succeeded in smuggling into the various parties a uniform constitution, akin to making them the five fingers of a leprous hand, as we had during the Abacha years. Needless to say that the surest way to kill democracy and turn Nigeria into a one_party state is to do exactly what the PDP_dominated National Assembly is proposing.
‘’The proposed law will also make the lawmakers _ in the case of the PDP more than 300 National Assembly members gate crashing into the NEC _ the single biggest bloc in the NECs of the parties. Then, the dictatorship of lawmakers would have been entrenched, with dangerous consequences for all,’’ ACN said.
The party said the various opposition political parties as well as Nigerians were to blame for the turn of events, adding that if the persistent warnings of the ACN had been heeded _ that the National Assembly members are representing themselves instead of those who voted them into power _ they (lawmakers) would not have been emboldened to try their latest antics.
‘’This has been long in coming. First, the instatiable lawmakers allocated humongously obscene salaries and perks to themselves, in total negation of the prescriptions of the Constitution, and they got away with it. Embloldened by the outcome of their audacity, they tried another trick, to insert a ‘Right of Refusal Clause’ into the Electoral Act so they can perpetuate themselves.
Realising this may not fly, they retreated temporarily only to come back with a vengeance by slamming through the gates of the parties’ NECs with their sheer force of numbers. Of course once there, they can then influence their parties’ laws to make them automatic candidates for life,’’ it said.
ACN said it was particularly surprised that the same National Assembly that justifiably threw out President Goodluck Jonathan’s proposed amendment making ministers and aides delegates in party primaries could then turn around and do something worse than what they rejected.
Saying eternal vigilance is the price of liberty, the party called on all Nigerians, especially opinion leaders, political parties and professional organisations, to speak out against the growing recklessness of the lawmakers who, in almost four years of their tenure, have yet to make any law that impacts positively on the citizenry, while constantly churning out laws that benefit themselves.