Senate changes rules, rigs Mark in

The Senate yesterday amended sections of its standing rules pertaining to the election of new presiding and principal officers and paved the way for Senator David Mark to stand almost unopposed for the Senate President’s job when the Seventh Senate convenes early next month. At least 80 percent of the current senators are not returning to the chamber next month. Mark was expected to be challenged for the top job by incoming senators Muhammadu Danjuma Goje and Abubakar Bukola Saraki, currently governors of Gombe and Kwara States respectively, who are now shut out by the amended rules.

At yesterday’s session, the Senate deleted its rule 97 (1)(f) that deals with consideration of seniority in election of Presiding and Principal Officers and replaced it with a new section (3)(2) that provides strict guidelines for the emergence of Senate leaders based on sharply spelt out ranking procedures.

The old rules, which did not clearly spell out the ranking procedure, were set aside in 2007 to allow then brand new Senator George Akume of Benue to contest for the office of Senate President against Mark, who was then entering his third term in the Senate.

Mark won that contest with the heavy support of former president Olusegun Obasanjo, but this time around, despite his being endorsed by the PDP national leadership to reoccupy the position, Mark yesterday led his colleagues to amend the rules and thereby scuttle the ambitions of any fresh senators that may be eyeing his seat or those of any other ranking members of the Senate.

Adopting a motion moved by outgoing Senate Leader Teslim Folarin, the Senate passed the new rule that provides “nomination of senators to serve as presiding officers and appointments of principal officers and other officers of the senate or on any parliamentary delegations shall be in accordance with the ranking of senators; “(b) In determining ranking the following order shall apply: (i) senators returning based on number of times re-elected (ii) senators who had been members of the House of Representatives (iii) senators who have been members of a State House of Assembly or any other Legislative House (iv) Senators elected as senators for the first time.”

Speaking while ruling on the motion for the amendment, Mark said there is nothing new in the amendment as it already exists. He said the Senate “cannot be intimidated by some outsiders into dumping an amendment that aims at strengthening the institution of Senate.”

He said, “This is not a rule that is new. It exists. We want to move it from 97(1) (f) to 3(2). Any new senator who is not ranking today would be ranking tomorrow. It is for the strengthening of the senate as an institution. This has nothing to do with David Mark but the institution of Senate. Commentators outside are ignorant of the rules and they were trying to blackmail us.

“There is nothing wrong with what we are doing now. If we chicken out because a few people are not comfortable with, I think it is not the right thing to do.”

The practical import of yesterday’s rule changes are that when the new Senate is inaugurated on June 6 or 7, the race for Senate President will be open only to the two fourth-term senators, namely  Senator David Mark of Benue and Senator Bello Hayatu Gwarzo of Kano, unless both of them decline to show interest.

Gwarzo has so far not shown any interest in the job, but Mark is already campaigning to retain the job he held in the last four years, as evidenced by his speech at the senators’ induction course in Kano three days ago.

Under the new rule, if the two most senior senators decline the job, then third and second term senators could vie for it, followed by former members of the House of Representatives, then former members of state assemblies, followed by fresh senators who were not members of any legislative house. While Bukola Saraki has no legislative experience, Goje was a member of the House of Representatives in the Second Republic, but it is not clear whether the rules recognise that as seniority.

a source in the Senate told Daily Trust yesterday that the desperation by Mark and his supporters to amend the rules was because 80 percent of the new Senate’s members will be fresh termers and there is the fear that they could team up to defeat the older senators, as nearly happened in 2007. In particular, there is much fear of the two former governors Goje and Saraki, who are thought to be working through other governors to lock up the support of many freshmen senators, hence the changes to shut them out.

The Senate also amended rule 111 of its standing order to provide for continuity of legislative process in respect of bills and other activities of the chamber.

The new rule now provides that “the legislative business of the senate which remains undetermined at the close of a session of the Senate shall be resumed and proceeded with in same manner as if no adjournment of the senate had taken place and all papers referred to committees and not reported upon at the close of session of the Senate shall be returned to the office of the Clerk of the Senate and retained until the next session of the Senate when they shall be returned to the several committees to which they had previously been referred.”

The new rule may however be at variance with provisions of the 1999 Constitution which provides that the life of every session of the National Assembly terminates at the end of the session. Matters pending at the end of the session were in the past adjudged to have terminated with the session.