PRESIDENT Goodluck Jonathan, on Monday, joined issues with the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Honourable Aminu Tam-buwal, over party supre-macy, following allegation by the speaker that the executive arm has refused to assent to bills passed by the National Assembly.The president told the speaker that having been elected on the ticket of the same political party, they must work in line with the manifesto of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).Speaking on the topic, 'Our Democracy: Progress and Challenges,' at a national symposium to mark the 2012 Democracy Day, at the Banquet Hall, State House, Abuja, the speaker had noted that he was disturbed that the executive had shied away from its responsibility, by not signing bills passed by the legislature.While enumerating the challenges facing the legi-slature, Honourable Tam-buwal had said 'another challenge is the issue of assent to bills passed by the National Assembly. Inasmuch as it is the constitutional duty of the legislature to pass laws, it is equally the constitu-tional responsibility of the president to assent to same.'But, in a direct response to the remarks, President Jonathan, who addressed the issue of the workability of separation of powers, noted that while it was possible to completely separate the judiciary, both the executive and the legislature must, however, work together in the interest of the people.According to him, 'the speaker made reference to bills, for example. We all belong to political parties, but the judiciary does not belong to parties. Every political party has a manifesto and those who contest elections to hold any office, whether in the executive arm of government as president, vice-president, governor or those who contest election to be in the legislative arm of government, either as a legislator or councillor, are supposed to campaign based on the party manifesto and that is why individual governors don't have their separate manifestoes.'Jonathan said every member of the PDP, for example, were supposed to key into its manifesto, adding that 'when we are elected into office, both arms of government are supposed to work together to make sure that the party manifestoes guide our actions. If that is true, how do we separate them''The president, who revealed that he was angry when he came into the State House Banquet Hall and discovered that officials of the different arms of government had been made to sit separately for the programme, regretted the playing up of divisions among the arms of government.While noting that creating divisions could not lead to good governance, he asserted that politicians who belonged to the same political party ought to espouse similar ideals, saying 'if you fail, they say PDP has failed.'The president observed that while it was possible to separate the judiciary from government to a reasonable level, the same could not be said of the executive and the parliament. He said: "Let me talk about separation of powers which in some cases sounds even absurd. How separate are these powers' Yes, you can separate the judiciary to some reasonable level but can you really separate the parliament from the executive and have a stable government' That is one of the greatest challenges we have and especially in Nigeria.The president regretted that contrary to what obtains in other developed democracies where he said it is news for a lawmaker to publicly vote against the Executive, it is news in Nigeria when a lawmaker support the President."I believe if the parliamentarians and those in the executive maintain that theoretical separation of powers as if there is a wall separating the executive from the legislature, then this country will continue to have problems."He therefore stressed the need for both parliament and executive to work together "for us to succeed, for Nigerians to get the dividends of democracy, for us to even have good governance. "If we begin to see this clear division, we are exposing the National Assembly for people who are anti-government to use. It is not good to always celebrate theseparation, when we begin to celebrate the separation, those outside government would use National Assembly against the Executive," he declared.President Jonathan counselled that both the executive and the legislative arms of government must work together for Nigerians to get the dividends of democracy and good governance.Noting that judgment debts against the Federal Government had reached N185 billion, he reiterated that he could not behave like a dictator, but would like to carefully consider his actions before taking them, in order not to run foul of the law.In another development, Honourable Tambuwal has described the recent bombing and killing of innocent citizens by the Boko Haram sect as misapplication of religious knowledge.Tambuwal made the statement on the occasion of the inauguration of buses and public enlightenment equipment acquired by the National Orientation Agency (NOA) in Abuja.Tambuwal said 'the challenges of Boko Haram is basically lack of understanding of the knowledge and teaching of Islam.'He, therefore, urged members of the sect to unveil themselves and accept the offer of the Federal Government to dialogue, so that their grievances could betackled.While speaking on the buses and other equipment to be inaugurated, Tambuwal said the NOA was an essential agency of the government, with the primary aimof sensitising the public on government's policies.
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