By Nathaniel Zacchaeus, Abuja
The New Nigeria People’s Party member representing Kano South Senatorial District, Senator Kawu Sumaila, has predicted an imminent clash between his colleagues in the 10th Senate and their counterparts in the House of Representatives over the recent amendment to the Senate Standing Order.
He said amendments to the Order have made lawmakers in the House of Representatives, inferior to their counterparts in the Senate.
Sumaila spoke during an interview with journalists in his office.
He said there was the possibility that the House of Representatives members could fight back by withholding concurrence to Senate bills and resolutions.
Sumaila, who was a former member of the House of Representatives, as the infighting could lead to the rejection of requests from President Bola Tinubu.
The Senate after a closed session last week, had amended part of its rules which barred first-time senators from contesting the position of either the Senate President or the Deputy Senate President.
The amendment which was contained in a motion by the Senate Leader, Opeyemi Bamidele, stipulates that any senator who is contesting for the position of the Senate President and Deputy Senate President must have spent a minimum of one term in the Senate.
The amendment did not recognise members of the House of Representatives who win election to the Senate for the first time, as ranking senators.
*Says standing order makes House members, inferior lawmakers
Sumaila, however, said it categorised the House of Representative members, as second-class federal parliamentarians.
He said, “By that amendment, we have excluded members of the House of Representatives from the ranking arrangements in the Senate.
“We are practising bi-camera legislature. Based on the arrangements we met on the ground, for you to be a ranking member of the Senate, you must have spent one or more terms in the Senate or the House of Representatives.
“There was no exclusion of the House of Representatives members. The new rule has created a dichotomy between the red and the green chambers by excluding them.
“It is making the member of the House to be inferior to his colleagues in the Senate. The House is made up of 360 members while the Senate has 109. With the latest development, they are calling for anarchy.
“As somebody who has the experience of the House of Representatives, I think it is not a healthy situation. At the end of the day, it is the executive arm of government that would suffer.
“The House of Representatives I have known for almost 20 years, will surely strike and the Senate will be at the receiving end.”
Asked if it was proper for a first-time senator to emerge as Senate President, Sumaila said there was nothing wrong with it.
He said, “I don’t know where you were in 2007. I don’t think it should be an issue if a first-time senator decides to contest the presiding officers’ positions. It happened in 2007 when Senator George Akume contested the Senate Presidency as a first-time member in the Senate against Senator David Mark, he went to court and the Court allowed him to contest.”
Reacting to insinuations that the Rule was altered to stop the impeachment fever in the Senate, Sumaila said the amendment did not stop lawmakers from impeaching their presiding officers.
He said, “Today if there is any issue in the Senate, members could suspend the rule and come up with another rule. They will suspend the amendment and do what they like. You cannot just wake up and make law for your benefit.
“In 2015, Senate President Godswill Akpabio had no legislative experience but he became the minority leader. Recently, Senator David Umahi became deputy Majority Leader without legislative experience.
“We have three stages of ranking in our book. Senators who are re-elected are automatically referred to as ranking, also members from the House of Representatives who migrated to the Senate are ranking members. These two stages are ranking senators and we copied this system from the United States.
“We need to ask ourselves how they are doing it. You cannot make a sister chamber to be inferior and think that you are not stoking danger. Technically people don’t think this way.
“If there is constitutional amendment today and both the Senate and the House have different versions. A conference committee would be constituted.
“The conference committee cannot alter anything, it is either to accept the Senate version or Reps version. Then we will come up with a uniform version
“However, if for any reason the Senate disagrees with the House or the House disagrees with the Senate, it must be resolved by votes. If for any reason the House refuses to adopt our position there will be a joint session though it is the Senate President who will preside.
“The House of Representatives is made up of 360 members while the Senate has 109 members. This is the salient question they need to ask before they decide to amend the Senate rule which makes members of the House of Representatives, inferior to senators.
“I wonder how you can refer to somebody like Aminu Waziri Tambuwal, a former Speaker of the House of Representatives as a non-ranking senator when he had spent more than 12 years in the House of Representatives.
“People need to understand the implications of this kind of legislation. We ignore it because we know it will consume those behind it.
“For instance when we want to amend our rules we do it with a simple majority not two-thirds, therefore, any day we do it once we form a quorum and there is an amendment, the particular clause can be removed.
“If for any reason today we decide to remove our presiding officers, we can remove them by appointing the Speaker or Senate President.
“Immediately we form a quorum, we will suspend that clause, elect a new Senate President who may not be ranking. We will suspend the amendment that barred newcomers. That one is the issue of technicalities.
“That legislation cannot hold water, it cannot stand. I was laughing when I saw them thinking that they had used it to stop fresher from becoming Senate President”.
Sumaila said most of the members needed to be educated on the workings of the Bicameral legislature.
He said the Senate could only have the upper hand when it comes to confirmation of appointments, adding that in real legislation the House of Representatives has the upper hand because it is a game of number. It is constitutional representation.
The Senate representation, he explained was based on equality.
He said, “In my case, I have 16 local government areas, 171 political wards with over five million people and I am the same as somebody who came from Bayelsa, Ekiti, and Zamfara states that have fewer local government areas.
“Some Senatorial District have three local government areas but Kano and Lagos have more local government areas in a Senatorial District. It is because of equality.
“However, in the case of the House of Representatives, it is different. Kano has 24 and Lagos has 24 members. If you go to Bayelsa State, they have fewer House of Representatives members but have three senators like Kano.
“The current Senate President Godswill Akpabio was a first-timer when he became minority leader just because they suspended the rules.
“We also suspended the rules to accommodate Senator David Umahi as the deputy leader. At this current Senate, House of Reps members that migrated to the Senate are about 30. In the leadership, there are six persons. Most of them are not happy with the amendment,” he stated.
