 The Nigerian Senate has passed a bill to empower lawmakers at the national and state assemblies to summon the country's president and the state governors on issues bothering on security and other issues on which they have powers to make laws. Out of a total of 93 registered senators, 77 voted in favour of the bill to summon the president and governors. 13 were against and one lawmaker abstained. It also passed a bill to make it an offence and to provide the possible conviction of any person who refuses to honour the summons of the National Assembly or any of its committee. Joining us to discuss this is Dr. Monday Ubani, he is a legal practitioner. Thank you very much Dr. for joining us. Thank you for having me. Good evening. Yes. To the average mind, what exactly is the Senate trying to achieve here? I mean, I know instances where police chiefs, where heads of departments and agencies or federal power statels were invited and they didn't show up. But I'm yet to understand what they're trying to achieve with governors and presidents coming to answer, especially on issues of security. Yeah, what I'm going to talk about is that we can actually put everything into the constitution, which is what actually has happened here. But if you recall, sometime last year, there was a time that the Senate wanted the president to come so that they can discuss about the security situation that was deteriorating every day. And the president made a promise that he would honour the House. But eventually, according to the same president, he was advised that he would not honour that invitation. And of course, a lot of anger and a lot of discussion in the social media and the normal media. And I think that is what has actually reflected by this amendment that has been done in order to have it in the constitution that at any point in time, over any matter that the legislators have competent, legislative competence, they have the right to invite the governor at the state level and they have the right to invite the president at the national level. They are trying to make it like a constitutional issue so that nobody will be in doubt as to whether they have the power to invite the president over a matter they have legislative competence. That's why they have done it in the constitution. But for some of us also have this belief that it's not everything you put into the constitution, but you have to put certain things into the constitution when you have a country that doesn't operate. Normally, we are thinking that are supposed to be normal and not normal. Maybe you have to now become more detailed to avoid the situation where people will begin to argue that it is constitutional or it's not constitutional to do certain things. I think that is actually what has happened in the present circumstance by putting it into the constitution. But I don't think that any country in the world has such a provision in their decent because normally the president comes and addresses the legislative assembly and anytime the president is wanted by the legislators, they usually normally unknown such an invitation. But here, it's a different argument and I think that's why they have gone this far in order to insert it into the constitution. I know that you're not the president. Neither do you work with the presidency. So I'm just going to ask this question and I'll give you reasons why I'm asking. Now, I want to know why it's so difficult for this president or any president to show up at the national assembly to answer questions or brief the national assembly on issues that are mass arising or in terms of security like we're facing now. I'm asking this because, for example, in the UK, you have the prime minister's questions and it's every week. So you see a Boris Johnson or whoever, if it was a David Cameron, they would be there answering questions from members of their political parties and even the opposition. And it seems very seamless. Does that mean that maybe, or does it seem that maybe our leaders do not want to be questioned or that they do not know what they're doing in the first instance, hence the reason why they don't want to show up? In fact, there are many reasons why such things have come in this part of the world. There is this absolute arrogance in governance. There is absolute arrogance in governance. Where people who are in government feel that they don't owe you any responsibility, they cannot account to you, can't even invite them and have certain questions. And with certain arrogance in government, it will reflect when they have been invited for purposes like this. Especially over matters, these people have legislative competence. They have the right to invite the president. And you have just mentioned it. Virtually every day, the prime minister of the UK interacts with members of the House. Questions have been asked. Sometimes being booed, sometimes being called names, sometimes even being abused. And he has to reply in order to really show them that he is there to represent the people. He is the president of the people. And so those guys in the legislative assembly are also representatives of the people. And so they ask questions to reflect the wishes and the whims and caprices of those people they represent. And so whatever they ask, the president will must be in a position to give an answer to them. But here, it's arrogance of power. It is issue of impunity. It's also issue of maybe they don't even understand why they're in governance in the first place. We, Lawrence, may have also impacted in the way we treat each other in this part of the world. And also politics. You know, they may be also afraid that when they go to the House, they may be harassed by the opposition. And then they may not even have something to probably offer by word of explanation. That also accounts where you don't have anything to say. The only thing you need to do now is to use arrogance to cover it and say you will not appear. You will not even go and answer certain questions. But of course, if you have done well and you are very confident that you have done so well and then the House is inviting you, you shouldn't be afraid to go and give them an answer and probably, you know, give them explanation of what you are doing in governance. So most times it's also issue of incompetence and you have done very much and you have not done much. There's nothing you're going to be able to explain that will actually make sense and all that. That's why they keep away. So it's incompetence is lack of giving good governance. It's also arrogance is also impunity and also lack of accountability. These are all combined facts that makes us to be different from what are things in order to develop plan. Let's look at the houses of assembly. I mean, as much as we would point fingers at the National Assembly where these the ruling party seems to have the majority of members, the state houses of assembly are majorly occupied by people also in the party of the governors. And half the time, the laws that I don't even know what laws are being made in the states so far or what legislations are happening there. But how do we expect to see these lawmakers at the state level, summon their governors, being that most of them like you said to borrow your word are the women and capricious of these governors. We've seen this happen so many times. I mean, we've even seen local governments as an appendage of state governments. So I mean, whether this this bill is passed into law or not, what changes will we see? I mean, we've had so many laws that have been broken or flouted. What's what's what would what difference would this one make? Well, I I it's an intelligent question. It's better we have this legal framework in the in the in the first place. Then we need to actually change our political culture. This is sure subservient being subservient to a governor and the governor being unduly interfering with who becomes a speaker of the house and the leadership of the house so that they become subservient. They don't query the governor and all that. We need to first of all deal with issue of legal framework, which is what is going on now. A time we come we are the leadership of the houses. You know, we become very independent enough, just like we had in Syracuse era, where we had Syracuse that was questioning the president and all that. Remember that it was like he's in opposition. He was in a different political party but later he jumped to the other side of the of the political party. So let's have the legal framework, which is what we have actually succeeded in doing now. But let's agree that it will even pass through said through in the in the various states as a assembly because I know that the governors may not want that autonomy, which is very critical legislative autonomy and judicial autonomy, which the state and the House of Rev, have actually passed. They to reflect in the two thirds of the of the 36 states that will actually conquer before it becomes a conditional provision. So I hope they will be able to do that. At the end of the day, if the houses will begin to have legal independence in terms of financial autonomy and administrative autonomy, we may have to come to a time where they will begin to summon the governors and summon the president, you know, and ask questions. And if they refuse, they may likely take some level of action like impeachment of the governor and all that. But the legal framework is the first info. And I think that what we should concentrate our mind now is to ensure that all these innovations that actually have come with this passage by the Senate and House of Revs will be replicated by two thirds of the 36 states. Because if they don't do that, then it means that the whole thing will collapse again. Let's look at political parties and the role they play in this in all of this, especially for states. And just like you said, the governor somewhat has an influence on who's the speaker. Half the time you see speak people who were speakers impeached by other members of also have no confidence passed on them because at the behest of the governor, even though it's not made to look that way, but we know what happens, you know, underneath. Now, when it comes to the place of political parties, sometimes even tickets to rerun for that office sometimes can be taken off of those candidates. And they're robbed of those tickets because maybe they're in a position to what the governor wants or what the governor is saying. How the political parties play into this particular legislation, because we can't also say that this is what will happen in the lower and upper houses without also looking at the implications when they go back to the meetings within their political parties. The political parties actually in Nigeria have not developed to the level of a political party, but it's different from those who are in government. Most time the political parties panda to the state executive at the state level, at the federal level to the presidency, because they lack ideal. They lack ideology. What do political parties in Nigeria represent? What do they stand for? They stand for nothing. And as long as they stand for nothing, they fall for everything. So the president says that they're looking at the president's body language. The same thing with the governor at the state level. And so it is really a big problem for us. So the issue of political culture of independence and probably having an ideology in what they believe in and what they propound, we go a long way. But when the political party has an ideal, every member that follows the ideal is respected and then upheld. And then you can be sure of coming back to the house, even when you work against the interests of the party, believing that you are the respect to ideal, the respect you have believed. But here, someone like Shea Usani remember because of certain things he did and revealed in the house. That was why they make sure that he never came back. So the political parties, he accomplish it. They aid and abate some of the wrong thing that is going on in Nigeria. They don't have any ideal. And as long as they don't have any ideal, they fall for everything. And that's why we're still having problems in terms of developing a political culture that actually works in the interests of the people and the interests of the country. We don't have a political party that has actually matured in a manner that we have other political parties in the climate where we see what they believe in an ideal and people pursue that ideal. We are over here, they fall for everything. The government controls the leverage of power at the state level. At the federal level, it's the president that does that irrespective or whatever they believe is their ideal and ideology. Well, I want to say whatever happens, you know, it remains to be seen because in this conversation it looks like no matter where we look, no matter how we look at it from whatever angle, it looks like it still boils down to what sort of decisions the governors and Mr. President make at the end of the day. But I want to say thank you Dr. Mondio Vani for speaking with us on this matter. We'll keep our fingers crossed and we'll see how this legislation unfold. Thank you very much for having me. Good night. All right. Thank you all for staying with us as we round off the conversation on the show tonight. In today's Street Views, Nigerians are speaking out on how the fuel crisis is affecting them. I'm sure it's affecting you too, but I'll leave you with this as I come back tomorrow with Plus Politics. I am Mary Annacle. Do you have a good evening? Since around the 50 minutes after and they have to buy fuel, we are killed for other pallets dead down to turn to order the under the bridge to come back to the movie. Give them some money and stop. First of all, I even went there to see what was going on as I missed their office and the last month, they said that's what Nigeria did. I said what should Nigeria do? They said I should give them money or pass me an entrance and say like I'm going to say okay I should give them one five. I say for what? It's very bad, very very bad as you can see. I'm opposite my office here. National Open University. I was here in the morning. I didn't even go into my office. I had to queue to buy fuel and see where I am. I'm not even sure what I'm going to get for. I've been here since 9 a.m and this is actually getting terrible. We actually started our queue from the other side of the road. We have to go down under the bridge then make it down here. Since it's 9 o'clock, we checked the time now this past three. That means I've been here for over six hours just because I want to get to four. I think it got bad over the weekend. It wasn't like this last week. But possibly my opinion, maybe the good fuel that we have available, proud to the foul fuel that they brought, we are possibly exhausted now. And once it gets exhausted, of course there will be scarcity. Knowing fully well that the war in Russia, Ukraine, they said has disturbed distribution.