Speaker of the House of Representatives, Yakubu Dogara, has said that despite the agitations and clamour in many parts of the country for restructuring, the National Assembly has the last say based on constitutional provisions.
The Speaker also said that the parliament will not closed its doors to the yearnings of the majority.
This is as the governors have faulted the statement by the presidency on the utilisation of the Paris Club refunds and bailout funds where it was reported that the President was not happy with them.
Dogara told State House correspondents after meeting with the Nigeria Governors Forum, NGF, at the Old Banquet Hall, Presidential Villa, Abuja, Wednesday night that some of the structural imbalance people were agitating about and the call for true federalism was not something to be done with stroke of the pen.
The Speaker was invited by the NGF to present the position of the House after saying that what the Senate presented earlier to the governors was not a harmonized position of the two houses as there had not been any harmonized position by the two chambers.
Speaking on what he discussed with the Governors, Dogara said, “I was asked to see them so that we can talk about some of these constitutional alterations in the National Assembly so l came to meet them so that we can talk on most of the Bills we are considering.”
While fielding question on the request for expansion of the scope of constitutional amendment by the Governors, the Speaker said whatever he was saying was his personal view, adding that he would only be emphatic on some of the issues after majority of members had agreed on them.
He said, “Even though l am the Speaker, l can tell you that l can only speak where majority of our members have agreed upon. So it is a bit early for me to conclude. But this is a democracy and in a democracy, the majority matters.
“We are aware of the ongoing agitations in the country. Some are calling for restructuring, some call it true Federalism. This is an an issue on the manifesto of the APC. It is our feeling as a very responsive and responsible representatives of the people to ensure that this debate is done.
“And I agree like l said before that the position of the President that most of this matters and issues should be canvassed at the levels of the National Assembly.
“This is because some of the structural imbalances that we are talking about that need what they call restructuring cannot be corrected just by stroke of the pen. Some of them are actually embedded in the provisions of the constitution.
“Even by pedestrian’s description of the function of government, the Executive cannot make laws, they cannot amend the constitution.
“They can only initiate the process in an Executive bill, but it ultimately revolves within the powers of the legislature. So, even the committee that is set up by the APC leadership on true federalism, by the time they conclude their work, most of the issues they come out with will require a kind of tinkering of the constitution.
“So, our feeling is that we should not just close the windows to the yearnings of majority of our people. We should listen again to all the stakeholders, listen more to Nigerians and at the end of the day, we will come up with an exercise that meets the expectations and yearnings of our People. We will not just amend the constitution for the sake of amending, we will want the exercise to be very impactful.
“The only way we can get that done is to listen and listen and listen more.”
Also speaking to journalists, Chairman of NGF and Governor of Zamfara State, Abdulaziz Yari said that the meeting the delegation of NGF had with President Muhammadu Buhari was twisted in the media and that it was not a reflection of the outcome of the meeting.
He also said that the delegation that met the President briefed members on the outcome of the meeting.
Recall that the Special Adviser to the President on Media and Publicity, Femi Adesina had in a statement said that President Buhari had wondered how people should sleep when workers were not paid.
He said, “We briefed the members about our meeting with Mr president yesterday (Tuesday), which I’m surprised some of You turned it upside down. You got the full briefing from me and then some of your people went and said they got from inside.
“I don’t know which inside that the president is not happy with the governors. It is very unfortunate. We had a very fruitful meeting with Mr. President and Mr. President accepted all our requests.
“The only thing Mr. President said was that he not being a technical person, we should wait for the minister of finance to return, and the chairman of the economic council to be around, so that they can give him update and support on what he is going to say to us.
“So he said we should reschedule this meeting until when he returns from Turkey. I think this is what I told the press yesterday (Tuesday) but I wonder how they turned it around. “Please we have to be serious with our job, this is Nigeria we are working for, we are working for our country, working for our people so we shouldn’t misinform the public and we should be guided with the things discussed.”
“As a follow up to the briefing by Mr. Deputy Senate President, (Ike Ekweremadu), Mr. Speaker briefed us on the version of the House of Representatives on the constitutional amendment which very soon they will soon harmonise the two positions.
“As critical stakeholders, they visited us and gave us their input on the other critical areas that are not touched like the area of restructuring, devolution of power etc. all those are going to be looked into and considered for the betterment of our country.
“We also received briefing from the Stock Exchange on how too address the issue of cash crunch in the nation. They spoke to us on the need to raise bond.
“Globally, it is the borrowing from outside that you use for infrastructure not the borrowing from within. So the stock exchange has given us opportunity for some and states that are ready to go into the stock exchange to raise bond to finance some projects.
“Because what is tied to the bonds is our income and our income is shrinking, through the bonds, we can finance projects that will impact on the water supply and sanitation etc.
“We are putting a committee in place made up of the members of the stock exchange as well as from the NGF secretariat to work together on that.”
