By Bayo Bernard
Mudasiru Obasa, the Speaker of the Lagos state house of Assembly and others may have been too hasty in their praise for President Muhammadu Buhari’s recent Executive Order granting financial autonomy to state houses of assembly.
Obasa, currently in the middle of corruption storm in the Lagos state house of Assembly had applauded the president for taking the decision which many believe will enhance the independence of the two other arms of governmnet, insisting that the Order was a gift to state legislatures.
He said “It would also boost healthy competitions among state legislatures in pursuit of advancements and developments.
This is the best gift the President Muhammadu Buhari, has given the legislative arms of state governments at this Sallah.
And coming at the end of the Ramadan, it means God truly answered the prayers of the member state legislatures through the President.”
It does not seem the controversial politician from Agege and other Nigerian will still be happy that the order has now been reversed, less than a month after the president signed the gazette.
On May 22, Buhari signed the Executive Order No. 10 of 2020, mandating all states of the federation to include the allocations of both the legislature and the judiciary in the first-line charge of their budgets.
The decision had received widespread support from well meaning Nigerians but definitely not from state governors who appeared not happy with the order, and has been putting pressure on the president on the matter, sources in the presidency told the magazine.
The governors’ efforts have now paid off as the presiden has back-tracked on his earlier decision, following his meeting with the Nigerian Governors’ Forum, the umbrella body of state chief executives in the country.
The chairman of the Forum and Ekiti state governor, Kayode Fayemi, said on Monday in Abuja, the nation’s capital that the President has decided to suspend the gazette allowing state legislators financial independence.
The Ekiti helmsman said the president suspended the order to give room for more consultations among various stakeholders in the issue before a final decision is reached.
He stated that the issue is a constitution one that cannot be decided in a hurry.
According to Fayemi “It is an issue that has seized the interest of many of you in the media and a lot of people in the federation, it is about the autonomy of the state legislature and the judiciary and we’ve met with the president before now on it and the president was very pleased that for us as governors, we are all united in support of the autonomy of state judiciary and the legislature; that’s the position of the 36 Governors of the federation.
What is at issue is on the constitutionality of the modalities of what had been put in the executive order and the president was gracious enough to say ‘okay, given your concerns about that, we will delay the gazetting of the order and allow you meet with the attorney general and the minister of finance to work out the modalities.”
The Forum’s chairman stated that efforts are going on to settle “without any resort to court.”
The Minister of Justice and Attorney General of the Federation, Abubalar Malami had earlier dismissed the concerns of the state governor insisting that Executive Order 10 is not in conflict with the constitution.
Malami said the Order is “intended to achieve supervisory role by assigning responsibilities and ensuring proper supervision desired for the purpose of enforcement and application of autonomy constitutionally granted states legislature and judiciary as contained in Section 121(3) of the 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.”
The governors obviously disagreed.
