A major showdown might be underway between the House of Representatives and President Goodluck Jonathan after lawmakers yesterday, insisted that the President should sack the Director-General of the Security and Exchange Commission (SEC), Arunma Oteh, without which, there will be no progress on the bills amending the 2013 Appropriation Act and the Subsidy Re-investment Programme (SURE-P) which Jonathan forwarded to the National Assembly.
Clause 10 of the 2013 Appropriation Act as passed by the National Assembly reads: “All revenue however described, including all fees received, fines, grants, budgetary provisions and all internally and externally-generated revenue, shall not be spent by the Security and Exchange Commission for recurrent or capital purposes or for any other matters, nor liabilities thereon incurred except with prior appropriation and approval by the National Assembly.”
But Jonathan is sticking to his guts, warning legislators that preventing the SEC from spending funds in the 2013 fiscal year, would set a dangerous precedence and spell doom for the capital market, which is still tottering on the brink of a perilous recovery after its near collapse last year.
“Considering the fact that the budget of SEC does not form part of the core 2013 Federal Budget as presented to the National Assembly, I believe that this clause ought not to have been inserted in the 2013 Appropriation Act in the first place. Secondly, the import of the clause is tantamount to shutting down the business of the Commission with a potential negative impact on the capital market,” the President argued.
However, in a fresh resolution on a motion moved under matters of urgent public importance yesterday by Deputy House Minority Whip, Hon. Garba Datti, the House mandated its Committee on Legislative Compliance to monitor the President’s compliance and report back to it within 21 days.
Datti had expressed concerns that the inaction of the President was a blatant disregard of the resolutions of the House of Representatives, and that most of these resolutions, though products of motions, hinge on fundamental public duty placed on public officers by the Constitution under the Fundamental Objectives and Directive principles of State Policy.
He expressed disappointment that “… the Executive has adopted the dangerous and vexatious approach of picking and choosing the implementation of resolutions of the Senate on the dismissal of Abdulrasheed Maina which was passed much later in time while still disregarding the long pending motion on the removal of the Director-General of the Securities and Exchange Commission.”
After the House launched investigation into the near-collapse of the Nigeria’s capital market last year, both the House and the Senate, in separate resolutions asked the President to sack Oteh as the DG of SEC, saying she lacked the requisite minimum professional qualifications to head the commission, failure of which the parliament would have nothing to do with the SEC.
It remains to be seen whether Jonathan will continue to ignore the lawmakers who want Oteh’s head after she provoked a showdown with the House Committee investigating the crash of the capital market; during which she made embarrassing revelations alleging Committee members tried to shake down the SEC to finance the hearings. Nigerians were shocked and scandalize as the hearing were live on television.
