Plateau: N/Assembly Reconvenes Tomorrow
From Kola Ologbondiyan and Ahamefula Ogbu in Abuja
After a three-hour meeting of its leadership, the National Assembly yesterday resolved to reconvene tomorrow to enable them vire N2.5 billion from the security vote of the National Security Adviser for the running of Plateau State.
Confirming the story to THISDAY, Deputy Speaker of the House of Representatives, Hon Austin Opara, said apart from legislating on the Plateau State issue, there was no plan to deliberate on the alleged move by the executive to decentralize the Nigerian Labour Congress (NLC).
While Senate President Adolphus Wabara led the Senate team, Speaker Aminu Bello Masari led that of the House.
The meeting, which was held in the office of the Speaker Masari, had in attendance Wabara, Deputy Senate President Ibrahim Mantu, Senate Leader, Dr. Dalhatu Tafida, Senate Chief Whip, Victor Kashim Oyofo, Deputy Leader, Senator Kolawole Awoyelu, Hon. Opara, Clerk of the National Assembly (CNA), Alhaji Ibrahim Salim, and Special Adviser, National Assembly Matter s, Senator Florence Ita-Giwa among others.
When finally the Speaker emerged with his own team, it was the Leader, Hon Abdul Ningi who explained their decision to reconvene tomorrow and to sit for a day or two to tidy up the virement of the money.
"We are not approving any supplementary budget. What we are going to do is to vire N2.5 billion from the already approved 2004 Budget of the National Security Adviser for the running of that state. We approved the imposition of the state of emergency and we have to approve the money to run the State", Ningi said.
Asked what became of statutory allocations to Plateau State, he replied that the money was not enough even to pay civil servants' salaries after deductions for payment of debts accumulated by the sacked governor, Chief Joshua Dariye.
He said the completion of projects already started in the state would require that the federal legislators must reconvene to approve the movement of money in compliance with the provisions of clauses inserted in the 2004 budget.
Asked whether it was true that the legislators demanded that the Executive should release their outstanding allocations to enable them resume, Ningi said there was no need for any such requests since the money had been appropriated.
He further explained that it was true that in the first quarter, 80 percent of the allocation was released while only 40 percent was released in the second quarter. He, however, added that the release of the allocation to the National Assembly was not a condition for resumption as the rules are clear that if anything deserving of their reconvening happened, they would be called back.
Mantu had also announced that the Senate would reconvene "on Wednesday (tomorrow) to attend to matters of urgent national importance."
There were strong indications yesterday that the Senate would sit tomorrow and Thursday after which senators would disengage to continue their eight-week end of session recess.
However, Vice Chairman of the Senate Committee on Banking, Insurance and other Financial Institutions, Senator Farouk Bunza-Bello, yesterday cautioned his colleagues against approving the amendments to the Trade Union Act being sought by President Olusegun Obasanjo. He noted that "the proscription of the NLC at this time is not in the best interest of this nation."
There had been speculation that part of the issues to be attended to by the legislators will be the amendment being sought by the president to the Trade Union Act as a means to "democratise" the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC).
"Now will you tell me that a decision to proscribe the NLC which I know for sometime has been fighting for a cause of the less privileged Nigerians and of recent was vehemently against increase in prices of petroleum products, for us to come and sit down and pass a bill proscribing it, I think Nigerians would disown us as their representatives.
"The threat to democracy is to stop people from being democratic, to stop Nigerians from expressing themselves. For me, what is threat to democracy is not NLC but its proscription. The threat to democracy is for you to be dictatorial," Bunza-Bello added.
He said that, "when you have an umbrella body, whenever there is crisis, you can have somebody to dialogue with. Now, if government wants to deal with 200 or 300 unions, I don't think it would augur well for the nation and for good governance. That is my candid opinion. This shouldn't be done in a democratic era.
"But I don't think the National Assembly would rush it (amendment) When the bill comes, the National Assembly would discuss the general principles of the bill and pass it over to the labour committee which would then call for a public hearing and all Nigerians would now have inputs into that bill."
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