By Ismail Mudashir



Twenty eight months after the appointment of Senator Ita Solomon Enang as the presidential aide on National Assembly (Senate), Daily Trust takes a look on how the Akwa Ibom politician has fared in managing the relationship between the executive and the Senate.

Appointed at a time when there was no love lost between the executive, especially the Presidency and the Senate, Senator Ita Enang has been swimming from one trouble to the other, trying to mend fences and cement cracks.

Enang’s appointment came two months after the emergence of Senator Bukola Saraki as the Senate President, against the wish of his party, the All Progressives Congress (APC). The division at the Upper Chamber was pronounced and deep but as time went by, the lawmakers cemented their crack and forged ahead.

With the resolution of the internal wrangling, the battle has since shifted to between Senate and the executive, with Enang at the middle of the whole drama. It has been from one trouble to the other, unlike what is obtainable at the House of Representatives. There is relative peace between the House and the executive.

Records showed that since the return of the country to democracy in 1999, five presidential liaison officers for the National Assembly have been appointed. They are Aminu Wali (1999-2003), Senator Florence Ita-Giwa (2003-2007), Senator Mohammed Abba-Aji (2007-2011), Senator Joy Emodi and Senator Ajadi Makanjuola served between 2011 and 2015.

Our correspondent reports that all the liaison officers had challenges peculiar to the exigencies of their times. But that of Enang, regarded as a thoroughbred lawmaker with close to 20 years experience in National Assembly (House and Senate) seems to be overwhelming and unending.

Liaison officers are appointed to serve as a ‘messenger of the president’, receiving and transmitting communication from the president to the Senate and vice versa. The responsibility of lobbying of senators also falls on the shoulders of the liaison officer.

Aside these, the liaison officer guides presidential appointees like ministerial nominees and others during screenings, budget defenses, probes, public/ investigative hearings among other interactions/ engagements between the lawmakers and heads of Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs).

The primary responsibility of Enang in ensuring peaceful and harmonious working relationship between the executive and the Senate has been a mirage as many heads of MDAs have had their own battles with the Senators at one time or the other, thus enlarging the friction and suspicion between the two arms of government.


Enang’s troubles at a glance

The missing budget was a record-breaking feat recorded by the president’s aide. In January 2016, Enang was indicted in the budget disappearance controversy. A committee set up by Saraki specifically accused Enang as being responsible for the disappearance of the document. That was the first time the country’s budget would be disappearing.

In October of same year, he was also involved in another trouble. It was the case of a version of report of the Department of State Services (DSS) on the acting Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), Mr Ibrahim Magu. While the clerk to the Senate had a report that indicted Magu, Enang had another that cleared the embattled EFCC boss.

The controversy created by the report is yet to be buried over a year after. Twice, the Senate had rejected Magu and the refusal of the executive to implement the lawmakers’ resolution has brought about a logjam in confirmation of President Buhari’s nominees. Records have it that confirmation of about 50 nominees are pending in Senate as a result of this quagmire.  The lawmakers have embargoed confirmation hearings.

It was under the watch of Enang that the sacked Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Babachir David Lawal, ran into trouble. Lawal’s crisis with the Senate started when he said the executive won’t fund the constituency projects of the lawmakers for 2016. It was after the constituency projects brouhaha was laid to rest that the grass cutting contract scandal reared it face, this led to the sacking of Babachir.

The fire ignited by the chairman of the Senate Committee on Navy, Isah Hamma Misau (APC Bauchi) against the Inspector General of Police Ibrahim Idris has not been quenched, just as the Attorney General of the Federation(AGF) and Minister of Justice, Abubakar Malami, is being probed at the Senate over his role in the circumstances surrounding the return and promotion of the former chairman of the Presidential Task Force on Pension Reforms, Abdulrasheed Maina.

While the Comptroller General of Customs, Hammed Ali’s uniform controversy has died down, a new controversy is brewing involving heads of MDAs. Only on Wednesday, the Senate raised alarm over the lackadaisical attitudes of top government functionaries towards invitation on 2018 budget.

Spokesperson of the Senate, Aliyu Sabi Abdullahi (APC, Niger) told newsmen on Wednesday that the Senate was disturbed by a new trend where heads or chief executives of critical institutions who should play a critical role in the budget process choose to ignore the invitation by the Senate to appear before it for deliberation

“Specifically yesterday (Tuesday) when we had a deliberation, the Minister of State for Budget and National Planning was around. But based on the discussion we were supposed to have; to look at the revenue projections which are the basis for the MTEF, I want to report here that the GMD of NNPC refused to show up. Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria refused to show up.
The Comptroller General of Customs refused to show up. The Director General of the National Bureau of Statistics refused to show up. And the Director of DPR refused to show up,” he said.

A source at the National Assembly said though Enang has witnessed many crises under his watch he has maneuvered well except for the missing budget issue.

“He has done creditably well when compared to his immediate predecessors, Ajadi and Emodi in terms of crisis management. Look at the way he survived the missing budget scandal. We all know he received the heat on behalf of his boss, that is very good of him,” the source said.

But another source said predecessors of Enang resisted sectionalism, ethnicity, sycophancy, mediocrity and mischief, lamenting that the reverse is now the case.

Accordingly, the source said the attitudes of Enang were among the factors responsible for the suspicion and bad blood between the Senate and executive. The source alleged that Enang had on many occasions misguided appointees during investigative hearings, thus setting both arms against each other.

“What do you make of a situation where an aide to the President displays I know it all mentality. This happened during the appearance of the IGP before the Senate over Misau’s allegations against him. Rather than calming nerves, he said they would use multi door options to settle the matter. What does he mean?

“A similar lack of respect for the institution was displayed on November 7 when the president presented the budget to the joint session of the National Assembly. The two aides of the president abused protocol and tradition by hijacking the responsibility of the Clerk to the National Assembly (CNA). Protocol wise, it is the responsibility of the CNA to assist the president in laying the budget document, but the aides took this over. What an eye service! “ the source said.

The source called on the president to call Enang and his House of Representatives counterpart, Abdulrahman Kawu Sumaila, to order to restore respect, order and responsibility, adding “after all it is the CNA that signs and transmits not just the budget but all bills to the president for assent.”

 

My biggest challenges – Enang 

In an interview, Enang said the case of missing budget and Magu’s controversy were his biggest challenges.

He said all the crises involving the Senate and the executive have to do with the appointees of the President and not the president as a person.

“I’m sure you can notice that whichever hard word that comes from the senators on the floor, is either against a minister, a Director General or an officer of government and not Mr. President as a person. This has been noticed by all Nigerians and me. It shows that very rarely does the Senate have very serious issue against Mr. President personally,” he said.

The presidential aide said he has maintained the principle that he brought into the system, which is dialogue, lobby and show of understanding with the Senate, without confrontation.

“The greatest of my challenge was the question of the missing budget, the Magu question, then the question relating to confirmation of appointments because the legislature has placed embargo on it. In all these, I thank God because we adopted extreme diplomacy when knowledge failed, we resorted to AK-47, by asking God to intervene,” he said.

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