Akwa Ibom Assembly is ‘liability to society’ – CLO
Civil Liberty Organisation (CLO), Akwa Ibom State chapter, has berated the Akwa Ibom House of Assembly over “poor representation”, and failure to override the state governor, Udom Emmanuel on bills he withholds assent.
“This is where the 7th Assembly has failed,” Franklyn Isong, Chairman of CLO, said at the end of year get-together of the Consolidated Chapel of the Nigeria Union of Journalists, Akwa Ibom State Council, on December 22.
“It (the 7th Assembly) has consistently reneged on its constitutional duty and turned a blind eye to several Bills passed and presented to the Governor but ignored by the Governor,” Mr Isong said.
The CLO chairman expressed disappointment that members of the Assembly lacked the “political will” to “invoke Section 100 (5) of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, 1999 (as amended) – ‘the Assembly can override the governor’s assent and pass the Bill, with a two-thirds majority of members of the Assembly’.
Mr Isong said the Assembly is “an asset to the state executive council and a liability to society.”
‘Governor Emmanuel only signs appropriation bills’
In an interview with PREMIUM TIMES Tuesday, Mr Isong said “the governor only signed the budgets (appropriation bills) into law, that’s all he has done.”
He mentioned some of the bills passed by the Assembly but denied assent by Governor Emmanuel as Neighbourhood Safety Corps Bill, Scrap Metal Dealer Bill, Akwa Ibom Youth Development Fund Bill, and Akwa Ibom State College of Science and Technology Bill.
Mr Isong who lamented that all the bills have become dead despite the money spent during public hearing urged the Assembly to re-present the bills afresh.
Once a bill is passed by the House of Assembly and forwarded for assent, if the governor withholds assent for 30 days and the Assembly does not override the governor’s veto, the bill is dead.
“What the House of Assembly should do is to re-represent the bills afresh. All the monies they have spent on doing public hearings and other funding have become a waste,” Mr Isong said.
‘Constituency offices occupy by reptiles’’
Mr Isong, who said the constituency offices of the state lawmakers have been taken over by reptiles due to overgrown weeds as there is no one to attend to the offices, wondered how the lawmakers could offer effective representation without interacting with their constituents.
He accused the lawmakers of not engaging their constituents in interactive sessions to seek their inputs in bills, adding that the lawmakers live in the state capital, Uyo, and only visits home only for ceremonies.
“There is no Assembly-man without a constituency but, unfortunately, what is obtained in Akwa Ibom, particularly in the 7th Assembly, is that there are assembly members without constituencies.
“The members of the 7th Assembly carry on without regular constituency briefings and interactive sessions. They sit in Uyo and only return to their constituencies to attend burials, child dedications, traditional marriages, and naming ceremonies.”’
The spokesperson for the House, Aniefiok Dennis, did not respond to calls and text messages seeking comment from him.
The State Commissioner for Information, Ini Ememobong, however, dismissed Mr Isong’s allegations as incorrect.
Mr Ememobong said, although the governor has the discretion to give or withhold assent to bills, he (the governor) has also assented to the Anti-open Grazing Law and Violence Against Persons Law. Premium Times
