Saraki’s election valid, lawyers insist

Lawyers yesterday joined the controversy trailing the election of Senators Bukola Saraki and Ike Ekweremadu as Senate president and deputy president respectively, saying the procedure did not offend the provisions of the law.

Former 1st vice president of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA), Osas Erhabor, said once the proclamation of the Eighth National Assembly was done, the lawmakers were constitutionally armed to proceed to elect their leaders before taking their oath of office.

He said: “The senators cannot take their oath of office before electing their president, who will swear them in. After the proclamation, the senators are supposed to elect their leaders and after that they will take their oath of office. It is when the leadership is in place that you can swear them in and that was what happened.

“I understand the president wrote a letter authorising the clerk of the National Assembly. It is just that some persons were absent; that is why there is this hue and cry. If everybody were present and the election went properly the way it was done, there would be no hue and cry. It was not at 10 a.m. that the election even started; it started at about 11 a.m. I think the All Progressives Congress (APC) senators were just naive staying away from the venue. Whatever meeting they wanted to hold should have been before that day. You don’t schedule a meeting on the day of inauguration. They took it for granted. They shot themselves in the foot and it is unfortunate, because the other senators just played a fast one on them. But I think it is good for our democracy if the legislature is allowed to choose its own leaders and organise itself. That is what the constitution says.”

On his part, former chairman of the Ikeja branch of NBA, Monday Ubani, said the senators complied with the constitutional procedure for choosing their leaders.

“There was a proclamation already sent by the president to the clerk. It was after the proclamation that the senators elected their leaders. But the issue I am yet to reconcile myself with is the fact that the members of APC were not there. The house was supposed to be constituted at 10 a.m. So, if the members of APC chose not to be there, it is not the fault of the leadership,” he said.

Rights activist, Fred Agbaje, also agreed that the election of the Senate leaders by the senators before taking their oath of office did not breach the constitution.

He, however, insisted that the senators could not do so without first declaring their assets and liabilities.

Section 52 of the 1999 Constitution (as amended), he insisted, must be read in conjunction with other relevant provisions to understand the intendment of the legislature.

The lawmakers, Agbaje explained, were mandated to declare “their assets and liabilities even before taking their seats.”

Section 52(1) of the 1999 Constitution (as amended) provides: “Every member of the Senate or the House of Representatives shall, before taking his seat, declare his assets and liabilities as prescribed in this constitution and subsequently take and subscribe to the oath of allegiance and the oath of membership as prescribed in the Seventh Schedule to this Constitution before the president of the Senate or, as the case may be, the speaker of the House of Representatives, but a member may before taking the oaths take part in the election of a president and a deputy president of the Senate, as the case may be, or a speaker and a deputy speaker of the House of Representatives.”