The National Assembly Members retreat under Governors’ fire

ABUJA—THE Senate and House of Representatives, yesterday, beat a retreat in their confrontation with the nation’s 36 governors over amendment to the Electoral Act that would make the federal lawmakers members of their political parties’ National Executive Committees.
While the Senate passed the Electoral Act Amendment Bill without the controversial proposal to make members of the National Assembly automatic members of the NECs of political parties, the House of Representatives on its part suspended passage of the bill containing the controversial clauses indefinitely.
Meanwhile, the stage for the battle between the governors and the lawmakers in the dominant Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, was closed temporarily after the scheduled NEC meeting was deferred till tomorrow. Party chieftains resolved to shift the meeting to enable further consultations on the cantankerous issues.
Already, chairmen of State chapters of the PDP after a meeting on Monday night condemned the proposal to foist the National Assembly members on the parties’ NECs.
Speakers of State Houses of Assembly on their part in another resolution pledged to boycott the forthcoming party primaries should the proposed amendment see the light of the day.
The stage for the turnaround by the senators was set at a closed door session of the Senate during which the lawmakers re-examined the controversy stirred by the proposal to make members of the National Assembly statutory NEC members.
Vanguard learnt that the lawmakers felt particularly unnerved by public animosity arising from the controversy earlier raised about their reported take of 25 per cent of the Federal Government overhead expenditure.
Regulation of political parties
At the closed-door session, a number of the senators equally expressed the opinion that the regulation of political parties should be left in the hands of the political parties as they argued that it would amount to an overkill to legislate on the administrative running of political parties.
A senator told Vanguard yesterday: “I personally do not think that it is our duty to legislate on how political parties should be run, so it was not difficult for us to find a middle ground on the issue.”
Following the closed-door session, the Senate resolved into plenary during which the report of the Senate Committee on Constitution Review, SCRC, on the Electoral Act Amendment Bill was presented for consideration.
Multiple sources said, Monday night, that the committee had, Monday night, resolved that the membership of NEC should be restricted to one senator and member of the House per State. However, following the dire threats from the governors who met later that night, the senators simply gave in.
A total of 47 clauses in the amendment to the 2010 Electoral Act were eventually passed by the Senate at a speed described by Senator Kanti Bello  as ‘jet speed’ with the exception of the controversial clause 4 section 87 (11).
Section 87 reads: “No political appointee at any level shall be a voting delegate at the Convention or Congress of any political party for the purpose of nomination of candidates for any election, except where such a political appointee is also an elected officer of a political party.”
The controversial clause which was included by the legislators  reads: “Chairmen and vice chairmen of Special and Standing Committees who are members of the party in the Senate, chairmen and deputy chairmen of Special and Standing Committees who are members of the party in the House of Representatives.”
But after the reading of the clause, the Minority Leader, Senator Maina Maji Lawan, who led the debate on the bill in the absence of the Chairman, Senate Committee on INEC, Senator Ishaka Adeleke told the Senate that the sub-section had been deleted.
He said: “The entire subsection 11 should be deleted. I am withdrawing it.”
Deputy Senate President, Senator Ike Ekweremadu, who presided over the amendment, told journalists later that the Senate’s action was in response to the will of the public.
Noting that the Senate believed in allowing the political parties to handle all matters of internal democracies without interference from the National Assembly, though the National Assembly was constitutionally empowered to regulate the affairs of the political parties, he added:  “There has been a lot of heat in respect to the  amendment.
The passage today I believe will finally settle the issue. We felt that the issue of the national executive council of political parties needs to be settled once and for all.
“What we have done this afternoon is to have another look at it and we felt if this is heating the system, we can say we drop it. So basically we have removed that aspect dealing with the National Executive Committees of political parties, such that the parties will now determine those who will be members of the National Executive Committee.
“We are hopeful that our respective parties or the remaining parties will find it in their wisdom to bring in members of the National Assembly to their respective NECs. We hope that the political parties will be left with the management of their respective NEC, and handle the issues of internal democracy which we believe will assist them in ensuring that we have a credible, free and fair election in 2011.”
Other notable amendments passed, yesterday, included shifting the powers to disqualify candidates from election from Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, to the court.