Senator Bala Ibn Na’Allah (APC, Kebbi South), the Chairman, Senate Committee on Air Force, is a lawyer and pilot. In this interview, Na’Allah laments the deteriorating banditry and mass kidnappings in Nigeria and the seeming inability of security forces to stem the tide.
The Senate, particularly the leadership, which you are part of, is seen in many quarters, as a rubber stamp of the executive compared to the House of Reps or even the 8th National Assembly. The ex-service chiefs’ confirmation as ambassadors seems to confirm this position.
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Your assessment is wrong. I am not part of the leadership. I am an ordinary senator. I only chair the Committee on Air Force. I am not part of the leadership of the Senate. So, I don’t have the competence to accept or deny that we are a rubber stamp since the allegation is to the leadership.
But if you want me to comment on the presentation of the ex-service chiefs as ambassador nominees before the Senate, I will reluctantly but forcefully tell you that the Senate has guiding principles and it is run by those principles and the nation’s Constitution.
The fact that the Senate, in one of its sessions, said the ex-service chiefs should be sacked, because of the insecurity in the country at the time they were heads of security agencies, does not in any way affect the criteria for confirming these people. There is a legal basis for every appointment. So, what the Senate at the confirmatory stage does is to look at the nominee, his C.V and then the law that gives the President the power to appoint him and see whether any of the provisions of that law has been infringed or not. If it has not been infringed, then the Senate will say yes. Don’t forget that every senator has sworn to uphold, protect and defend the Constitution, law and rules of the Senate.
He is strictly guided by these three provisions. The Senate may not like the person but the fact that it has to go by the criteria, it cannot refuse to confirm nominees. I will give an example. There was a letter from Mr. President for the confirmation of one nominee as Chairman of Fiscal Responsibility Commission. The Senate was not happy because there were no representatives from the six geo-political zones of the country.
Some senators were of the opinion that we should reject the nominees until other nominations were sent. I stood up and said, ‘I agree with you. I also agree that you can be bitter about this power of the President but is there anywhere in the Fiscal Responsibility Bill where it says that in the constitution of the body, the nominations must be done at once?’
The answer is no. I cautioned the Senate and gave my reasons. The Senate was swayed by that argument. The danger of allowing an elected official to operate outside the provisions of the Constitution and the law is serious. The whole idea about democracy is the ability of the citizen to be able to predict with some reasonably degree of certainty that this is what will happen to me under these circumstances.
I would have wished in the oath of office we took as senators that we uphold the Constitution, law, rules of the Senate and morals of the country. It is very difficult to put a measure in determining certain things that the public expects us to know. I will rather say that we cannot swim in the murky water of morality and begin to hide under that and do things we know is neither supported by the law nor the Constitution.
Banditry and kidnapping are twin crimes ravaging particularly the North. It has also been politicized and monetized. This explains the rise of the crimes.
Reviewed by Jude
on
March 21, 2021
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