In the past few weeks, the Nigerian public has been treated to an unseemly spectacle of incivility, marked by an exchange of unusually venomous words between the executive and the legislative arms of government. The roots of the current season of acrimony apparently date back to June 12 2017 when, on the cusp of signing the 2017 budget into law, Acting President Yemi Osinbajo, lamenting the delay in getting the budget passed, pointed the finger at the National Assembly, accusing it of introducing extraneous elements into the budget. Days after signing the budget, the Acting President doubled down on his initial charges against the National Assembly, this time flagging the possibility that the members of the legislative arm of government might have acted ultra vires in insinuating items that were not there during the ministerial budget defence before the Parliament.
The reaction from the National Assembly was swift, with at least two lawmakers, House Speaker Yakubu Dogara and Honourable Lawal Abubakar (Yola North/Yola South/Girei, Adamawa State) respectively declaring the Acting President’s speech a breach of privilege and insisting that the National Assembly was well within its rights. Insisted Speaker Dogara: “When it comes to the budget, the power of the purse in a presidential system of government rests in the parliament.”
Over the past week, the Minister of Power, Works and Housing, Babatunde Fashola, like the Acting President a lawyer by training, has weighed in on the matter. In a press release signed by his Special Adviser on Media, Hakeem Bello, Mr. Fashola borrowed a page from the Acting President’s earlier criticism of the National Assembly, accusing its spokespersons of “failing to address the fundamental points about development-hindering whimsical cuts in the allocations to several vital projects under the Ministry of Power, Works and Housing as well as other ministries.”
In a subsequent newspaper interview, the minister articulated the legal thrust of his position thus: “I don’t think that they (the National Assembly) can sit down and legislate projects that are not federal projects. That would be doing violence to the constitution because there are three levels of government. The local and state governments have their responsibilities and the Federal Government should be building federal roads, not state roads.” He then went on: “In my budget, you will find things like motorised boreholes, primary healthcare centres. That is a violation of the constitution; it shouldn’t be in the appropriation law of the Federal Government. If the judiciary decides that it is the National Assembly that should make the budget and hand it over to the executive to implement, so be it.”
In the push and shove between the Executive and the House of Representatives, it is possible to discern the silhouette of a philosophically legitimate contention over the boundaries of two arms of government, specifically the question of where the duties of one starts and whether those of the other begin. That such a debate is important in a democratising society goes without saying, and the vigour and passion with which those involved go about defending their respective positions is rightly invoked as a testimony to their commitment to the integrity of institutions and the principle of separation of powers.
But whether such a civic spirit is at work in the current showdown is an open question. For one thing, the vitriolic nature of the language being used is cause for concern. For another, in the ensuing rancour, it is often unclear what the philosophical and socio-legal issues are. Both members of the Executive and the National Assembly owe a mutual obligation to the general public to eschew spiteful language and focus on what is at stake in policy matters.
In both his official statement and later comments to the press, the Power, Works and Housing Minister listed several important projects across the country, the executions of which are being delayed by the ongoing contretemps. Among them are the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway, the Bodo-Bonny road, the Kano-Maiduguri road, the Second Niger Bridge and the Mambilla Hydropower Project. We urge the Executive and the National Assembly to look for common ground so that work can restart on these critical projects. Robust debate need not bring the system to a halt. On the contrary, it is the essential lubricant of the democratic machine.
