Senate re-assures Nigerians on commitment to good legislation

Senate re-assures Nigerians on commitment to good legislation
Obiora Ani, Abuja

Senate President, David Mark has re-assured Nigerians and the international community of the Seventh Senate’s commitment to making laws that will promote good governance at all levels.

Mark, who made the remark on Tuesday while receiving a group of foreign correspondents in Abuja, said that such laws would bring democratic dividends to the citizenry and stability to the polity.

Good legislation

 “We will continue to pass laws that will ensure good governance and once we do that, it is a bold step towards stabilising democracy in Nigeria. It is a collective responsibility of all Senators,” he said.

On his re-election as the President of the Senate unopposed, he submitted that the confidence and consensus of opinion did not come by chance.

“We worked hard for it and our colleagues saw reasons to vote for me. I campaigned to be re-elected,'' he said.

Mark said: “I spoke to every Senator-elect. I spoke to them in their caucuses. Some of them expressed reservations and I explained my position to them and they understood.

Senate credibility

“One thing that I maintained is that I will not make a promise to individual Senator but I will be just, fair, transparent and do things I can defend before my God when there will be no witness but only David Mark.''

Mark said the image of the National Assembly was improving but gave the assurance that the Assembly would do more “to let Nigerians understand the activities and appreciate us''.

“We know most Nigerians have wrong mind-sets about National Assembly. I think with time and as we do things more positively in the interest of all Nigerians, they will come to realise that the legislators are not the devils people think they are,'' Mark said.

Unconstitutional demands

He also said that the call for President Goodluck Jonathan to attach the portfolio of would-be ministers alongside their Curriculum Vitae for screening by the Senate before their appointments was unconstitutional.

The Senate president said that there may be the preferred options to enable the Senate ask specific questions, but that is not the constitutional requirement.

“The constitution wants Mr President to forward the names of the nominees to us and once he does that, he has fulfilled the constitutional requirement.

“The 1999 Constitution provides that Mr President forward names of ministerial nominees, one per state to the Senate for screening and confirmation as minister of the Federal Republic of Nigeria and nothing more,'' Mark said

Williams