End of story:

[size=14pt]Northern crisis: Jonathan to ignore Reps’ summons[/size]
June 22, 2012 by Olalekan Adetayo

President Goodluck Jonathan will not honour the House of Representatives’ summons over the spate of violence in the northern part of the country, a top official in the presidency said on Thursday.

The official, who pleaded not to be mentioned, said the summons was not based on any point of law.

But the House said on Thursday that it had the power under Section 89 (1-a) of the 1999 Constitution, to summon “any person” over whom it had the power of appropriation, including the President.

Spokesman for the House, Zakari Mohammed, said this even as he explained that the summons to Jonathan was not intended for a confrontation with the President.

The Reps had on Tuesday passed a resolution asking the President to appear before them to explain what he was doing to tackle the insecurity in the country.

The resolution was sequel to a motion moved by a lawmaker, Yakubu Barde, a Peoples Democratic Party member, representing Kaduna on the bombing of three churches in Kaduna State on Sunday and the reprisals that followed.

Leading the debate, Barde said that poverty and crime would prevail in the country if the current insecurity situation was allowed to continue.

He urged the President to step-up the fight against insecurity in the country.

The motion was unanimously adopted by the House but no date was fixed for the President to show up before the lawmakers.

The lawmakers’ summons came a day after Jonathan travelled out to Rio De Janeiro, Brazil, for a United Nations Earth Summit, leaving behind a burning country.

But the presidency official said the lawmakers did not have any right under the nation’s constitution to summon the President under such a condition since the country was not practising a parliamentary system of government.

He said under the presidential system of government which Nigeria practises, the President has an exclusive power that places him above such summons by the House of Representatives.

He said, “Nigeria is not practising a parliamentary system of government like it is obtainable in Britain where the Prime Minister is a member of the Parliament; and he is just the first among equals.

“We practise a presidential system of government which gives an executive power to the President. He cannot be summoned in such manner by the House.

“Again, a resolution of the National Assembly is an opinion that is not binding on the executive arm of government.

“It will interest you to know that the National Assembly under former President Olusegun Obasanjo passed similar resolutions summoning him like about four times.

It is on record that he did not honour any of the invitations and nothing happened. Their resolutions are mere opinion or advisory.”

As at press time, the Special Adviser to the President on Media and Publicity, Dr. Reuben Abati, could not be reached for his comments on whether his boss would honour the invitation or not.

Zakari said the intention of the House was to “interface” with the President on the security problems, including the escalating bomb attacks, kidnappings and armed robberies.

He said the House was concerned that Jonathan might be facing some challenges which the intervention of the legislature could help to resolve.

He said, “The best way to address this crisis is to interface with Mr. President. That is why we said he should come along with his service chiefs.

“Are the security funds not enough? What is it that he knows, which we do not know?

“If there are frustrations, what are these frustrations? We want to know.

“The invitation is not to bring the House in conflict with Mr. President.”

“We went to the Villa and had a luncheon with Mr. President; nobody complained then.

“This invitation is a continuation of the interface; now we are asking him to come and brief us on the security situation in our land,” he added.

On the grounds of the legality of the invitation, the House spokesman argued that under Section 89 (1-a) of the 1999 Constitution, the National Assembly could summon “any person” over whom it had the power of appropriation, including the President.

He said in the 2012 budget, the legislature appropriated about N1tn for security and had the powers to summon anyone to explain how the money was utilised.

However, he clarified that the matter at hand was not about power but rather on how to find urgent solutions to the security situation.

http://www.punchng.com/news/northern-crisis-jonathan-to-ignore-reps-summons/

ndu_chucks:

Tell the hundreds if not thousands of people who have died as a result of the insecurity that its all politics. Your time is running out quickly- just in case you work for these incompetent government officials. T[b]here is nothing adversarial in the summons and the President is not above the law[/b]. Period.

If the president chooses to ignore such a summon, he has NOT broken any law. You can prove otherwise if you have the facts!

Beaf: End of story:

Indeed. The story may end after Azazi testifies.

myola:

Oga mi, I stand to be corrected o. I believe they are 1st chief security officer of their individual state, what I understand is that all this BH was started from state level, if we continue blaming FG or looking unto FG along for solution we may not find one o.

My best Regards

I think I already posted what the Constitution says there on that issue for you. Your constitution does not recognize the office of "CHIEF SECURITY OFFICER". No, it does however know that each state has a Governor, and those Governors can make suggestions to the State Commissioner of Police who in turn makes sure that those requests are approved by the president before they can be implemented.

Please visit your Constitution for what the Law says on the Structure of the Police System and the interactions between the Security system and the State Governors, not what title some person, with no powers given him/her by the Constitution, bestows on self or on another.

Will Azazi be called on to testify? Now that he is no longer NSA, I think the House should call on him to. If anything to ascertain the reason, if any, why he made the 'controversial' statements he did on the involvement of the PDP.