Why Acting President Osinbajo refused assent to 4 national assembly bill

Nigeria’s acting President Yemi Osinbajo on Wednesday wrote to both the Senate and the House of Representatives why he refused to assent four bills passed by both chambers of the National Assembly..

In the letter which was addressed to Senate President Bukola Saraki and read at plenary, Osinbajo said he was withholding assent to dangerous Drug Amendment Bill 2016; National Lottery Bill; Agricultural Credit Guarantee Scheme Fund( Amendment Bill 2016 and the Currency Conversion (Freezing Order) (Amendment)  Bill, 2016.

The four letters to Saraki and Speaker, House of Representatives, Yakubu Dogara by Acting President Osinbajo were dated 7th February, 2017 and his refusal were pursuant to Section 58(4) of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, 1999 as amended.

In one of the letters, Osinbajo said that he refused to assent to the Agricultural Credit Guarantee Scheme Fund( Amendment) Bill, 2016  because “the concerns surrounding board composition, funding arrangements, limitation of liability of funds and proposals to increase levels of uncollateralised loans from N5,000 to N250,000.”

He also said he withheld his assent from Currency Conversion (Freezing Orders) (Amendment) Bill 2016 because of “the concern regarding modalities for the communication of asset forfeiture orders.”

Osinbajo in the other letter explained that he failed to assent to Dangerous (Amendment) Bill 2016 because of “certain words and phrases utilised in the draft bill that may be inconsistent with the Principal Act (for example Section 6 of the bill with Section 21 of the Principal Act) and the spirit behind the proposed amendments.”

In the same vein, he said he withheld his assent from Assent to National Lottery (Amendment) Bill 2016 because the “rationale for withholding assent to the bill is the existence of pending legal challenge to the competence of the National Assembly to legislate on the matter.”

Meanwhile, the action of the Acting President to return the passed bills to the Senate did not go down well with some of the Senators who protested against it, just as they vowed to override the Acting President at the end of the day.

The Senators who kicked against the return of the bills to the National Assembly by the Acting President, however accused the presidency of undermining their legislative powers by failing to assent to bills they passed.

Addressing Journalists after plenary, Chairman, Senate Committee on Media and Public Affairs, Senator Aliyu Sabi Abdullahi said that Senators were of the opinion that they cannot be stopped to carry out their powers in line with the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.

Earlier in his remarks, Senator George Sekibo, PDP, Rivers East reminded his colleagues of Senate’s power to override the president’s veto, adding, “The National Assembly has power to override the veto of the president.

The way the constitution is framed they have their own roles to play, we have our own role to play, we check each other and I know that the matter is the court and base on our rules we cannot  discuss on it is a different thing but if it is just that the president did not give assent.

We have to look at the merit of the particular bill if it meets the standard and if the court matter is not going to impede on what we are going to do then we can override the veto of the president.”

In his remarks, Senator Dino Melaye, APC, Kogi West who also kicked against the rejection especially with regard to his Bill on National Lottery said, “I am particularly raising this because I am the mover or the sponsor of that bill. If I have the permission of Mr President before I elucidate I want to bring some relevant sections of the constitution.

“Section 4 (1) reads “The Legislative Powers of the Federal Republic of Nigeria shall be vested in the National Assembly for the Federation which shall consist of the Senate and the House of Representatives.

The National Assembly shall make laws for the peace, order and good government of the federation or any part thereof with respect to any matter included in the exclusive list set out in part one of the second schedule of this constitution.

“Mr President, the explanation for witholding the assent as stipulated in the letter by the Acting President is because there is a pending litigation on this matter.

Mr president, democracy is standing on the basic principles on the separation of powers and it has divided this into three; the executive, the legislature and the judiciary and the powers of the executive is in section 4 of the constitution while the powers of the executive to implement these laws is vested in the executive in chapter 5, while the powers to interpret these laws is deposited in section 6 of the constitution.

“Mr President, the role of the executive is to carry out their fundamental objective by signing anything that has been passed by this House. May that day never come.

It will become so dangerous for democracy and our powers to legislate must have been taken away from us as enshrined in section 4 of the constitution. So the role of the executive is to assent to any law  passed by this House and anyone who has problem with it can go to court in compliance with the provisions of section 6 of the constitution. May it not be a bad day for democracy if we keep quite and allow the powers of the legislature to be usurped by the non-compliance to the provisions of the constitution.”

However in his response, Senate President Saraki who noted that issues raised by the senators were noted as he promised to forward the returned bills to the National Assembly’s legal department for proper legal advice on the bills to enable them know the way forward, said, “I think the procedure is  we would refer this to our legal department to give us advice on interpretation on some of the things that you have said for us to be properly guided but I agree with you that it is a matter that we must take seriously because it goes down to the issue of separation of powers. We would get the opinion of the legal department.”