ABUJA — DISPLEASURE over last week’s passage of the Labour Reform Bill mounted yesterday in the Senate with members aggrieved over the matter, issuing an impeachment threat against the Adolphus Wabara leadership. The displeased senators asked that the bill be revisited.
Senator Farouk Bello (ANPP, Kebbi Central), speaking yesterday, said it was the belief of a majority of senators that the current leadership must give way to safeguard the gains of the country’s hard-earned democracy.
But Senator Wabara, in a swift reaction, said the Labour Bill passed through due process, and that no senator raised objections against the procedure during the passage of the bill. Besides, he claimed that labour leaders across the country had been commending the Senate action on the report.
Senator Bello did not disclose the number of senators involved in the move in a statement dictated to Senate correspondents, but said the leadership’s action in rushing through the bill negatively confirmed insinuations by Federal Capital Territory, Minister Mallam Nasir el-Rufai, that the policies of the present government were not subject to debate.
Senator Bello spoke against the background of the controversy that trailed the Senate’s passage of the Trade Union Amendment Bill last week during which the Senate president threatened Senator Uche Chukwumerije (PDP, Abia) for supposedly mocking the process.
Affirming that senators were left with the option of backing the majority of Nigerians or a dictator on the Labour Bill, he said: “It is with the full conviction that majority of senators will choose the former option that I today believe more than ever before the current leadership of the Senate must give way to a more credible one, if our hard-earned democracy is to be saved. I, therefore, call on my colleagues to act now or be acted upon.
“I am committed to working with my other colleagues with like mind to either institute a legal action in court to nullify the purported passage of the Labour Bill in view of the high irregularities in the process and/or commence an impeachment process against the current leadership.”
Expressing shock at the Senate leadership’s action, Senator Bello, vice-chairman of the Senate Committee on Banking, Insurance and related Institutions said: “I was shocked and terrified by the hasty passage last week of the Labour Bill by the Senate. I looked at the situation where as a senator of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, my vote or stand on the issue of such national importance together with majority of other senators sharing the same view with me does not seem to matter. A situation in which the leadership arrogates (to) itself the powers to pass a law even when majority of us think otherwise, this I call a tyranny of a few.
My heart bleeds and I feel severe pains when by our own actions we are gradually endangering the survival of our hard-earned democracy. We have an option, an honourable option of backing the wishes and aspirations of teaming millions of Nigerians who elected us into office, or succumb to the wishes of a dictator who we unwittingly made and eugolise, who believes he is God’s sent, and therefore acting on scriptures from God, which should never be challenged by mortals.”
Assuring labour of the support of majority of senators, Bello said: “I want to re-assure Nigerians that majority of senators are fully in support of a vibrant labour and will do all that is necessary to guarantee its survival.”
But responding to the threat yesterday, the Senate president in a statement through his chief press secretary, Mr. Henry Ugbolue, said: “When the bill was considered (clause by clause) and read the third time, 36 senators were in the Senate chamber. This, of course, is one senator more than the constitutionally approved quorum of 35 senators. Even Senator Uche Chukwumerije who raised issues about ‘speedy’ passage of the bill confirmed on the floor of the Senate that due process was followed.”
