Lending a Helping Hand
By Anza Philips-Abuja Bureau
Monday, August 28, 2006
Senate back from recess, expresses worry over the wave of political assassinations in the country and offers to help stem the tide
The Senate resumed from its recess on Tuesday, August 22, determined to tackle problems confronting the nation. These problems include the spate of political killings in the country and the seeming unpreparedness of the Independent National Electoral Commission INEC, towards the conduct of next years' general election.
The senate demonstrated this determination as it invited Sunday Ehindero, Inspector General of Police, IGP and Kayode Are, retired army colonel and director general of the State Security Services, SSS, to appear before the legislators on Wednesday, August 23. The purpose was for the security chiefs to explain reasons for the rising wave of crime in the country of late, particularly; political assassinations and the inability of the security forces to apprehend and prosecute the perpetrators of these crimes.
The decision to invite the security chiefs followed the opening address of Ken Nnamani, senate president when the senate resumed sitting last week. In the address titled 'Providing leadership in difficult times," the senate president told the senators that in the past weeks villains and assassins had attempted to take the clock of democracy backwards as democratic gains recorded were suddenly being turned to democratic deficits.
"While the senate was on recess, Engineer Fusno Williams and Dr. Ayo Daramola, governorship aspirants in Lagos and Ekiti states respectively, were murdered in gruesome and cold blooded manner. The death of these political stalwarts at this moment compounds fears about 2007," Nnamani said.
According to him, these murders had raised the barometer of violence in Nigerian politics. The senate president expressed the hopes that the country was not back to the beaten path of a electoral violence. "We hope that this wanton destruction of life is not a sign of a bleak election year", he said.
Nnamani told his colleagues that Nigerians deserve free, fair and credible polls in 2007, but warned that this could not be achieved if hired killers were allowed to operate freely.
The senate had, in a statement prior to its resumption frowned at the increasing rate at which the country was losing its valuable human resources to criminals. The statement which was signed by Victor Ndoma-Egba, chairman senate committee on media and public relations cited the killings of Bola Ige, former attorney general of the federation, on December 23, 2001 and other prominent members of the ruling Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, such as Marshal Harry, Aminasoari Dikibo, and the recent incidents as examples.
The upper legislative house said it shared the anxiety of all Nigerians to get to the root of the past murders and to put an end to what it described as "all senseless killings."
Regarding the issue of next year's general election, the senate also extended its invitation to Maurice Iwu, chairman INEC to appear before it to appraise the House of the difficulties and the challenges the commission was facing as well as to acquaint the senate of its strategy towards a free, fair and credible election in 2007.
The senate president captured the mood of the nation right regarding INEC's unpreparedness to conduct the 2007 polls in his welcome address to the senate. He said, "Having appropriated funds for INEC and passed a new electoral law to streamline electoral process in Nigeria, it will be a gross disservice of our collective responsibility as legislators if we do not take seriously the anxiety daily expressed by Nigerians on the state of readiness of INEC to conduct free, fair and credible elections in 2007".
The National Assembly has accused INEC of failing to explain why it requires N 3 billion as supplementary appropriation to buy ballot boxes in addition to the N 3 billion already released for the same purpose. Kunle Abdulwahab, professor, presidential adviser and head of the Budget Monitoring and Prince Intelligence Unit, BMPIU, has also faulted INEC expenditure.
Abdulwahab whose office is also called "Due Process" had during the recent public hearing on INEC at the National Assembly accused INEC of inflating the cost of a unit of Toyota Land Cruiser from N 8.9 million to N 12.3 million and that the Commission failed to produce the list and relevant certificates for jobs executed, inflating jobs and treating correspondence without dispatch.
The senate credited for scuttling President Obasanjo's third term bid shortly before it went on recess is even poised to do more in this last lap of the legislative session. The legislative House had a drilling session with Nenadi Usman, finance minister and Charles Soludo, professor and Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN, governor over the withdrawal of N 2 trillion ($13.1 billion) from the Excess Crude Account and the Federation Account. This followed President Obasanjo's letter to the senate on Tuesday, August 22 seeking legislative approval for the N140 billion spent by the federal government to complete the last national head count exercise.
The president's letter reads, " following my letters of September 9, 2005 and June 12, 2006 on Power Sector Development and 2006 National Population Census, respectively, I hereby present for formal consideration and passage into law by the senate the attached bill for an Act to provide for the issue out of the Consolidated Revenue Fund, CRF, of the federation an additional total sum of $1.062,591, 071.85 for the funding of the power sector projects in Nigeria and additional two days of the National population census 2006."
|
