Presidency killing our democracy, Fayose cries out

GOVERNOR Ayodele Fayose of Ekiti State has cried, saying officials of the presidency “are bent on destroying our hard-earned democracy and emasculating the National Assembly.”

Governor Fayose, in a statement on Sunday, said: “The major difference between democracy and dictatorship is the presence of the legislature in democracy and its absence in a dictatorship.

“Efforts by this administration to hand-cuff the National Assembly are a subtle plot to foist full-blown dictatorship on Nigerians.”

In the statement by his Chief Press Secretary, Mr. Idowu Adelusi, Fayose said it was time Nigerians resisted such development.

He said: “In doing so, we shall be defending our democracy and we shall also be defending ourselves and generations of Nigerians yet unborn. This democracy cost us a lot in blood and sweat. The labour and sacrifice of the heroes and heroines of our democracy must not be allowed to go in vain.”

According to him, “it is a shame when the constitution of the country is violated by federal appointees and the Presidency keeps silent.

“It confirms that the Presidency is the one behind it. In the uniform saga involving the Comptroller-General of Customs, it is safe to say that the Presidency is in support of Hammed Ali against the National Assembly.

“It is scary that a whole Senate of the Federal Republic has to bow to an appointee who had needed the same Senate to confirm his appointment. In a democracy which thrives on separation of powers, this is tantamount to an invasion of the hallowed chambers of the legislature, in the same manner that we recently witnessed against the Judiciary.

“When the Presidency accepts and defends the arrogance of one man against the time-tested and practice-honoured intricate system of governance, then, the system as a whole has collapsed. It is even more dangerous that the courts have been dragged into this obvious plot to destroy the legislature just as we recently witnessed a similar plot against the Judiciary itself.”

He said “It is an open secret today that many judges are being blackmailed to do the bidding of the Presidency and the ruling party. It is also embarrassing to ask the Senate to maintain status quo on an issue that borders on the performance of its legislative duty.”

According to him, “Presidency appointees are ridiculing and sneering at the Legislature, which is comprised of the elected representatives of the people; Presidency appointees are relentlessly and without remorse tearing the fabrics that bind this country together: What are they turning this country into? When last did this happen in Nigeria?

“Magu’s nomination has twice been rejected by the Legislature; yet, he sits pretty in office: Under what law and by whose authority? Mrs. Jamila Shu’ara, permanent secretary in the Federal Ministry of Education, who should have retired two years ago, is being brazenly kept in the civil service in flagrant violation of extant civil service rules and regulations. Where else in the civilised world can that happen?

“If a power-drunk Presidency is bent on violating the law, why can’t the individuals concerned be men and women of integrity?

“What is the essence of sending appointees’ nomination to the Senate? It is so that the Senate, which is the authority constitutionally-saddled with the responsibility to confirm or reject such nominations, can perform its duty. And its decision is biding; not advisory like some chop-and quench lawyers are rationalising. And no nominee, who fails to pass the Senate hurdle, can sit in the office to which he had been nominated.

“The spirit as well as the letters of our Constitution; and, indeed, the pillars of democratic governance erected this road block to enforce checks and balances and keep the Executive in check because power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely

“Otherwise, we shall have dictatorship on our hands and President Buhari would soon become Emperor Buhari in the same mould or even worse than those of Emperor Jean Bedel Bokassa and Emperor Idi Amin Dada. God forbid!

Fayose then warned that “the infractions by the President’s men are becoming too often, too many, and achingly intolerable. We run a constitutional government and not a dictatorship. It is a shame that they are all behaving as if Nigeria is a banana republic.”