‘It’s An Indication That APC Is Not Ready For Governance’

Former Delta State Chairman of People’s Democratic Party and the Senator representing Delta North, Mr Peter speaks on the National Assembly’s lingering crisis ahead of next week resumption. 

What do Nigerians expect as the two chambers resume next week? We will resume on Tuesday, take correspondences from Mr. President and go into a formal session. If anybody has any bill, we will debate it.

Forget about those senators making noise, they cannot do anything. They do not understand what they are saying. Most of them think they are dealing with their errand boys.

It is a democratic place and there will be voting on any issue that is brought before us. Aggrieved senators such as Marafa think that with 30 senators, they can pass anything in the Senate. We are watching to see how they will go about it. I do not think they are up to 24 senators making the noise now.

They should know that the Senate is not run on the pages of newspapers; it is run on the floor of the Senate. So, if they think they are strong enough, let the Unity Forum come to the Senate on the 28 and say whatever they have to say. I read one newspaper where he was quoted to have said that the Senate should be ready for war.

I do not know where the war is coming from, whether it is verbal war or physical war. If he tries physical war the rules of the senate are clear and we know how to deal with him. If it is argument, we can assure him that all his arguments have been porous. But if he tries to bring in intellectual argument on the floor of the Senate, he would be disgraced. I assure you of that.

Don’t you think APC Senators are feeling shortchanged over committee sharing? Why should APC Senators feel short changed? Are we not one Nigeria? What of the principle of federal character? If you read the wordings of the so-called imported clause, it emphasises on treating all the geo-political zones equally.

As far as we in the PDP are concerned, there was no importation in the 2015 Senate Standing Order and that is one thing people do not seem to understand. They keep talking about forgery or importation, the rules are not importation or forgeries. As a lawyer, you forge a document when there is an original document in existence.

There must be original document that is in existence before you can say that there is a forgery. There cannot be a forgery when there is non-existence of an original document.

So, the Standing Order for the 8th Senate is a document on its own. It is only when somebody forges that 8th Assembly document that you call it a forgery. Where is the original 2015 Rule that was forged?

What is process of amending 2012 version of the Standing rules? You do not need the 2011 edition to produce the document for 2015. Dynamics and changes in the environment of law empower you to make any corrections, either to improve, to reduce or subtract from the documents that you have before to fall in line with the existing reality of time.

For instance, the Electoral Act stipulates that all elections in the country should be by open secret ballot, why then should the rule of the Senate be at variance with the Electoral Act, which was passed by the National Assembly itself? The people who are now making the rules hold the Senate rules in compliance with the Electoral Act simple.

It was not an amendment. It was the bureaucrats that produced the Senate 2015 Standing Rule. It is the National Assembly Bureaucrats.

They bring such documents to the Senate or any legislative house. I have served as a political adviser to a governor and I have handled the first legislative session of the Delta State House of Assembly.

We, the bureaucrats produced the rule. There was no existing rule. We produced the rules based on what we have seen in different books. We assembled different books of various states and outside the country and from there, we formulated the rules for the Delta State House of Assembly.

When they came in, they met it. That is the reason there is a clause for amendment. If you are not satisfied with certain provisions of the rule of that section, the provision of the rule allows you to apply for either the expulsion of that Section of the rules or the amendment of that position.

That is simple thing. You do not stand up to say they have amended the rule or they have forged the rule. You cannot forge a rule that is not in existence.

They have given you a document that is the rule of the 8th Senate, if you are not satisfied with the rule that was given to you, what you needed to do was to apply either to expunge, to add, to subtract or to amend the Section of the rules.

You cannot say there is a forgery when you cannot produce the rules of the Senate for 2015. You have to produce the rule of 2015, not that of 2009 or 2010; it means you do not know what you are talking.

What is the implication of the lingering crises on the country? I have said it and I will keep saying it that APC was not prepared for governance. They did not think they will win election and so, the Nigerian populace gave them the votes and because they were not prepared, they did not understand the dynamics of politics.

Let me ask you, in the 16 years of the rule of People’s Democratic Party, have you ever seen them read a letter from PDP in the Senate, saying that these are the principal officers of the Senate? Or that PDP hereby directs that these are the principal officers? That is to tell you that APC was not prepared.

The Senate is an independent arm of government. President cannot dictate to us what should happen in the Senate. APC cannot dictate to us what should happen in the Senate.

What we are doing is our own internal affairs and I want to see the court that will tell us that it is the APC that will dictate to us what will happen in the Senate. The position is that APC was not ready for governance. They do not understand what is happening.

There is nothing APC can do to remove Bukola Saraki unless we PDP support that. But they can lobby PDP leadership to remove Saraki? That is ok then; let them do that for us to see.

The first person to approach PDP was Tinubu for us to support Lawan but we refused. Even when some people canvassed for Lawan, majority of us supported Saraki. If they think they can poach PDP, let them first of all try.

That is the way to go about it. In the legislature, you lobby, not that you will sit in the Party Secretariat and think you can determine what happens in the National Assembly.

Or you sit in the Presidential Villa and dictate what should happen in the National Assembly, we will not allow that. The National Assembly is for the Federal Republic of Nigeria and not for APC.

If we the senators are not satisfied with Saraki, we will remove him but we have not seen any reason to remove him now and we are not likely to remove him because there is nothing he has done wrong.

He has the Constitutional right to contest election and he did and he won on the floor of the Senate. Also, Ekweremadu contested the election and won. So, anybody who thinks he can sit in his house and think we will impeach Saraki, let him go ahead and poach PDP members, let us see how he can succeed.