In this interview Senator Ike Ekweremadu, the Deputy
President of the Senate responds to issues arising from the
dispute between the presidency and the National Assembly
over the Constitution (Alteration) Act vetoed by President
Goodluck Jonathan. Senator Ekweremadu asserts that the
president signed the bill and the National Assembly has the
evidence of his assent.
Excerpts:
By Emmanuel Aziken, Political Editor
What exactly is the issue with the court case between the
National Assembly and the presidency on the Constitution
Review?
When they adjourned the case to sometime in June, we
looked at the situation and one of our options we had was to
override the veto, but we believe that two wrongs do not
make a right and we decided to suspend action on it and
then return to the courts probably on the belief that the
courts did not know that the term of this particular National
Assembly was ending. So wenow briefed our lawyer and
filed a motion for accelerated hearing to look at the case so
that this matter will be determined within the life of this
particular National Assembly.
Are you hopeful that the case will be concluded before the
end of your tenure?
Most hopeful because it is a straightforward matter. The
truth of the matter is that the Attorney General tried to
frustrate the National Assembly from dealing with the
matter till the end of its tenure and that is why he was
applying for adjournments that will make it impossible for us
to look at the matter. Unfortunately, he has misled the
Supreme Court and he now tried to bring the executive and
the legislature into collision. But I believe that with this
development that this matter will be straightened.
How do you think the Supreme Court would rule?
The attorney general doesn’t have any case against the
National Assembly, so there is no course of action because
we have not finished our legislative duty. The matter in the
Supreme Court is simply unsustainable. In the first place,
his claim is that we didn’t have the required number to alter
section 9 of the constitution which requires 4/5th of the
National Assembly. But as a lawyer, he knows that he who
asserts has to prove but he didn’t provide one single
evidence, no affidavit, nothing attached to support what he
was saying. As far as we are concerned, we had the number
when we passed the alteration of the constitution, we had
the requisite number and it is not for us to begin to worry
ourselves about that, it is he who asserts that show that we
didn’t have the number. Section 58 of the constitution
requires us to send bills to the president for assent, it didn’t
say that we should bring evidence of the number of
parliamentarians that voted or their names or their address.
There is no such provision and no parliament anywhere in
the world sends a return of the evidence specifying the
number of people who were there. It never happened before
and it is never going to happen anywhere.
Have you done it before?
Never! We have never done it before. The law does not
require us to do so, the constitution does not require us to
do so. What the Attorney General wanted to do was to
frustrate the Fourth Alteration because he didn’t get what he
wanted.
Did he make presentations to you during the course of your
public hearing?
They did. During the national public hearing he sent
someone to represent him he was represented also in
Lagos. he wanted us to separate the office of attorney
general from that minister of justice. It is not true that he is
against it, his problem is that what we submitted was that
the National Judicial Council should recommend to the
president somebody to appoint as attorney general because
we want to separate the office of attorney general from that
of minister of justice to keep the independence of the office
and in doing so, we believe that the three arms of
government should be involved in the appointment. While
the judiciary recommends, the president appoints and the
Senate confirms. So that there will be checks and balances.
But he wanted a situation where the president appoints
somebody. The attorney general is supposed to be an
independent person
That is why they vowed that the president will not sign it and
when the president signed it somebody from his office
mutilated the president’s signature and ended up at
Supreme Court so that we wont discuss it.
Are you sure that the president signed?
The president signed it. Yes, we can produce forensic
evidence that the president signed it.
The attorney general’s office took it over and caused the
president to change his mind and carried out the drama of
sending out photocopies. But we requested for the original
copies of the bill but we have not received it.
Nigerians are worried over the burden of maintaining the
pension of former presiding officers of the National
Assembly in the amendment?
It is laughable because the constitution was written by the
executive at the time when there was no parliament. They
just took care of the executive and the judiciary and nobody
made mention of the legislature. A situation where the
president and the vice-president, the governors and deputy
governors are entitled to pension on leaving office, the CJN,
the president of the court of appeal and all the heads of the
courts are entitled to pension when they leave office and
then for the heads of the legislature, nothing is talked about
them.
What is good for the judiciary and the executive should also
be good for the legislature. We also want to look at the
National Council of States where the former Chief Justice,
former heads of state are members, but no mention was
made of former presiding officers, so you see the
constitution was prepared in a hurry and since there was no
parliament in place, there was no person to call attention to
these.
It is also alleged that you are trying to shrink the power of
the president by removing him from signing future
constitution amendments. Why?
We went to court, the matter is still pending at the Supreme
Court. We lost at the lower court but we firmly believe that
the president has no business signing the constitution
because that is the only act that the constitution requires a
two-third.
In America, the president doesn’t sign constitution
amendments and it is the same
We also said that under section 58 if the president doesn’t
sign a bill after 30 days it becomes law. That is the
standard practise all over the world. In a situation like
Nigeria where you don’t have time limit to sign a bill and
most times it will lapse and they will never return the bill to
you. To ensure governance, you need to put a limit to it. In
America it is ten days, but in our case we just changed it to
30 days. If a president doesn’t know what to do with a bill
after 30 days it means he or she shouldn’t be president.
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