President Goodluck Jonathan and Speaker of the House of Representatives Aminu Tambuwal openly disagreed at the Presidential Villa in Abuja yesterday over failure to assent to bills passed by the National Assembly.Tambuwal, who spoke first, said the president has been shirking his constitutional responsibility to sign bills passed, but Jonathan fired back by saying that the lawmakers have been overreaching the doctrine of separation of powers.The two leaders spoke at the 2012 Democracy Day Symposium.'In as much as it is the constitutional duty of the legislature to pass laws, it is equally the constitutional responsibility of Mr. President to assent to same. It is however disturbing to note that the Executive has shied away from this responsibility by not assenting to bills passed by the National Assembly,' Tambuwal said, without listing the bills referred to.'This makes the legislative process cumbersome because some of these bills have to be re-introduced de novo. This is not a healthy situation for the Executive-Legislature relationship neither does it portray our democracy in good light amongst the comity of nations.'Responding to Tambuwal's comments, Jonathan said the lawmakers disregard the manifesto of the ruling People's Democratic Party in enacting legislations.'The Speaker made reference to bills for example. We all belong to political parties but the judiciary does not belong to parties'. Every member of PDP, for example, are supposed to key into the PDP manifesto. So, 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''If it is the policy of PDP to carry out a programme in agriculture, it is the executive that would come up with the programme. My thinking is that the legislators who are members of PDP are supposed to support that programme because we are there, because we contested election on the platform of a particular political party, the PDP. But in Nigeria sometimes, you see the anomalies. Sometimes, people play into separation (of powers),' Jonathan said.He said budgeting has been a major source of confrontation between the executive and the legislature because the lawmakers always tinker with government spending plans.'If you send your budget to National Assembly and they tear it to pieces and package what they like to you, you start planning and managing the economy. We have challenges every year,' he said.'Budgets are not created from the moon. It is based on projections, commitments and funding and what you see sometimes could be disturbing. This has been a major conflict between National Assembly and the Executive. The Speaker mentioned it, that is why I am raising it. These are little things if both arms of government work together.'The President said in other democracies lawmakers hardly oppose the executive but that 'it is news in Nigeria when a lawmaker supports 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 added.Jonathan called on lawmakers to see themselves as part of government, as 'if you fail, they say PDP has failed.'He said disagreement between the two arms of government can only be to the benefit of the opposition.'If we begin to see this clear division, we are exposing the National Assembly for people who are anti-government to use,' he said. 'It is not good to always celebrate the separation, when we begin to celebrate the separation, those outside government would use National Assembly against the Executive.'Bills on Jonathan's deskSpeaking to Daily Trust yesterday, chairman of the House committee on Rules and Business, Albert Tsokwa (PDP, Taraba), said there were over 10 bills passed by the last National Assembly that were not assented to by President Jonathan.They include the Public Procurement amendment bill, Legal Aid Council bill, National Health bill, the bill on people with disability, National Assembly Budget and Research Office establishment bill, Tobacco bill, state of the nation address bill, FCT area courts bill, and National Assembly service commission repeal and re-enactment bill.There are also the National Bio-Safety management bill, River Basin Development Authority amendment bill, Nigerian Hydrological Services Agency bill, FCT Board of Internal Revenue bill, Harmonised retirement age of tertiary institutions workers bill and Police Act amendment bill.Tsokwa said apart from the 2012 Appropriation Act and the Transfer of Convicted Prisoners amendment Act signed by the president this year, he has not yet assented to all other bills passed by the present National Assembly since its inception on June 6 last year.
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