As members of the National Assembly resume from their month-long recess on Tuesday, the Legislature and the Executive arms of government have been called upon to sheathe their swords so that lawmakers can work on practical legislations and engage in qualitative oversight functions on ministries so that Nigerians can overcome the present economic recession.
This was stated by the Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria, HURIWA, while reminding the political class of the national emergency with which they should tackle the excruciating poverty levels afflicting millions of Nigerians and confront the expanding frontiers of insecurity and killings of innocent Nigerians by armed hoodlums of different valuations.
In a statement issued on Sunday by the National Coordinator of HURIWA, Comrade Emmanuel Onwubiko, the group specifically urged President Muhammadu Buhari to direct the Secretary to the Government of the Federation and the Federal Attorney General and Minister of Justice to end all litigations against the leadership of the Senate in the Code of Conduct Tribunal, CCT, and in the High Courts.
The tribunal had fixed October 5 to deliver ruling on the fresh motion seeking to suspend hearing on the 16-count criminal charge pending against the Senate President, Dr. Bukola Saraki.
The Federal Government had alleged that Saraki made false/anticipatory declaration of assets and operated foreign accounts while in office as Kwara State governor between 2003 and 2011.
Aside this, the Federal Government is prosecuting Saraki, the Deputy Senate President, Chief Ike Ekweremadu and two others over charges bordering on conspiracy and forgery of senate rule in 2015. Taking their plea at an FCT High court sitting in Jabi, Abuja, they pleaded not guilty.
HURIWA stated that the subsisting case in the Danladi Umar-led CCT and the forgery case at the Abuja High Court against both Saraki and his Deputy “must be withdrawn because they are such a bad intentioned distractions capable of derailing any constructive pursuit of solution through lawmaking mechanisms of a rapid end to the crippling economic downturns.
“Those are unnecessary distractions that could impede the total commitments of the legislators at the National Assembly to more vigorously pursue a broad- based legislative approach to help Nigeria rapidly overcome the rampaging Economic Recession sweeping across the Country with the concomitant consequences of mass poverty, hunger, unemployment and hyperinflation that have overwhelmed millions of Nigerians since the last four Months,” HURIWA stated.
Turning to the House of Representatives, the rights group called for truce and stability of leadership so the green chamber of the National Assembly can more constructively confront the biting economic downturns.
It also condemned the inclination by a Rap member, Abdulmumin Jibrin, to cast aspersions in the media against the properly constituted hierarchy of the lower chamber, “with the clear agenda to destabilise the leadership and foist bootlicking and sycophantic leadership that would be subservient to the Executive branch of government.”
Jibrin had earlier written to the 360 members of the House, urging them to pressurize Speaker Dogara and the three others he accused of padding the 2016 budget to resign. The three others are: Deputy Speaker, Yussuf Suleiman Lasun, chief whip, Alhassan Ado Doguwa and minority leader, Leo Ogor.
HURIWA, however, called for restraints and social responsibility on the part of the media on the publications of highly explosive and unsubstantiated allegations against the House leadership.
The statement reads, “Nigerian people should embrace the participatory roles in government accorded them by the tenets of the Constitution by demanding that individuals in both the Executive and legislative branches of government who would continue to pursue vendetta and political witch hunts are named and shamed and if possible recalled or impeached for peace to reign and for the battered national economy to be resuscitated without further delay.
“Nigerians should demand for stability of National Assembly leadership and efficiency in law making processes in the Country and condemn all the politically motivated trials instituted by the Executive arm of the current government against the leadership of the Senate for selfish reasons. The elevation of pettiness and demagoguery as states craft is hereby condemned as despicable and reprehensible.”
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