About 253 members of the House of Representatives were yesterday engaged in a closed session for over three hours based on the imposed state of emergency in Borno, Yobe and Adamawa states by President Goodluck Jonathan.
At the end of the session, the House passed the proposed Emergency Powers Bill sent to the National Assembly by the President but with extensive modification mainly to focus the mind of the President on security and not administrative issues.
The lawmakers also barred the President from utilising the funds of the states as he had proposed in the Emergency Powers bill sent to the National, Assembly and cautioned the military personnel deployed in the three states to protect innocent citizens.
The House also sought to get the President to transmit within seven days of the proclamation of such an order to the two chambers of the National Assembly.
According to the House, the refusal of the National Assembly shall nullify such an order.
Noting that the Senate may have passed the bill with variations, the Speaker of the House, Aminu Waziri Tambuwal set up a six-man conference committee. They include; Albert Sam-Tsokwa, Chairman of the House Committee on Rules and Business, Ali Ahmed, Chairman House Committee on justice, Aminu Shagari, Chairman, House Committee on Judiciary, Nkoyo Toyo, Ben Nwankwo and Nathaniel Agunbiade.
The House had to suspend its standing rules to adopt its proceedings of yesterday. The House made modification to the proposed bill. It amended three out of the seven clauses in the regulation.
While considering sections that touched on the administration of the states under emergency rule (Clause 2), the lawmakers amended the clause to state that anyone authorized by the President may act on his behalf to administer the areas under emergency rule “ as long as it is in line with peace, order and security.”
They, however, curbed the powers of the President in Clause 2(1), which states that: “ A state governor in an emergency area shall continue with the general function of administering the emergency area,” but deleted “under the control of the President or any person designated or authorized to act on his behalf.”
Members amended Clause 3 and stated that though the President may give directive to a Governor or a local Government Chairman directly or through his designate or a duly authorized person, it must, however, be with respect to “ peace, order and security.”
In the power of the President to make orders, the house deleted “good governance” from Clause 3(1), which now reads “the President may make such an order as appears to him to be necessary or expedient for the purpose of maintaining and securing peace, public order and public safety in the emergency areas.”
The lawmakers also altered Clause 3(2a), which states that the power of the President allows him to “ make provision for the detention of any person either within the emergency area”, as well as “ removal and exclusion of any person from the emergency area.” they deleted “or elsewhere”, arguing that the powers should be limited to only the affected areas.
The House deleted 3(2e) which says the President can “ provide for the utilisation of the funds of any State or Local Government in the emergency area.
They also altered Clause 5 to read “within 7 days” instead of “ a reasonable time”, for the President to transmit an order to the National Assembly after it had been made under the regulation.
When Speaker Aminu Tambuwal called for a vote on the amended regulation, it was overwhelmingly supported by all members.
Tambuwal, rounding off the session, said the House took its decisions in the interest of democracy. He said the military should respect the rights of law abiding citizens in the affected states.
“They should try as much as possible to look after the rights of those who are not involved in the wanton destruction of lives and property. The should do what the constitution of the country urges them to do, which is the protection of lives and property.”
He urged the terrorists to take advantage of the government’s amnesty proposal.
“I am sure government is willing and ready to accept whoever is willing to come out and drop his arms. Please, we are all Nigerians and we should continue to respect each other’s lives. I commend the House because what we have done was in the interest of our democracy.”
Pally Iriase (ACN, Edo) told the media why the lower chamber took so long to consider the bill.
He said: “We had to go through both the Proclamation and Emergency power regulations meticulously in order to bring them in consonance with good democratic practices and to assuage the fear of the possibility of introducing hawkish partisan political under the guise of emergency declaration.
“We are in support of the the need to give powers that are needed by the Armed Forces to curb the menace of terrorism and insurgency. We are ready for this menace to be dealt with, but not to be used for any other thing.”
Sources said that one of the most contentious issues was the length of the emergency rule. Members were wary that the President may extend the emergency rule beyond three months, thereby imposing an unnecessarily long period of hardship on the citizens of the three states.
Some members were said to have expressed the fear that emergency rule might become in itself a means to an end and that it may be a tool of oppression in the hands of a government desperate to capture states by all means.