Lagos — The disagreement over the modus operandi for amending the 1999 Constitution was the first incident that exposed the underbelly of the Federal Legislature. The current face-off over the venue of the joint session to receive the 2010 budget proposal by President Umaru Yar'Adua is a further manifestation of the conflict between the Senate and the House of Representatives.

The characters of the conflicts, which have now defined the the typical atmosphere of the National Assembly with the potentialities of causing collateral damage to political and economic wellbeing of the nation, are rooted in the tensions of the emergence of the leaderships of the Assembly.

Senate President, Senator David Mark had been endorsed by the leadership caucus of the Peoples Democratic party (PDP) under former President Olusegun Obasanjo for the position, while Hon. Patricia Olubunmi Etteh got the caucus' endorsement for the speakership position. They had emerged as presiding officers of both chambers.

But, a change of the leadership guard in the House of Representatives on November 1, 2007 was to mark the beginning of the cold relationship between Mark and Hon Dimeji Bankole who succeeded Etteh. In the thick of the battle to remove Etteh, Mark had reportedly quietly supported Etteh to the displeasure of Bankole.

However, that did not immediately rub off negatively on the relationship between them, until the presentation and consideration of the 2008 budget when the House allegedly padded the budget to the displeasure of the Senate and the Presidency. Bankole was said to have taken strong exception to his being treated as a small boy by the Senate and its leadership.

He had stopped attending the meeting of the joint meeting of the body of principal officers of both houses because a senator made an offensive remark which Bankole wanted retracted with an apology but which the senator refused to do. The cold war was to linger for a long time and had abated temporarily, when some ranking members of the Assembly who moved up to the Senate from the House intervened.

THISDAY gathered that those who mediated to break the cold war included Senators Thompson Sekibo, Wilson Ake, Ahmad Lawan, Lekan Mustapha, Suleiman Nazif, Caleb Zagi, Alloysius Etok and Ganiyu Solomon. They had acted in concert with their ranking colleagues in the lower house namely, Honourables Faruk Lawan, John Enoh and Ayo Adeseun among others.

The group had a breakfast meeting with Bankole after which it met with Mark. The Speaker was said to have expressed his objection to the way he was being treated by the Senate and its leadership. The group had also met with Mark where reconciliation brokered. That was in August 2008. Bankole was said to have resumed the meeting of the joint leadership of the Assembly in September. But the relationship had broken down again, this time irredeemably before the end of the year.

Thus, when on January 16, this year, the 44 members of the House of Representatives in the National Assembly Joint Committee on Constitution Review (JCCR) walked out of the retooling retreat for the committee membership in Minna, Niger State Capital, because of the refusal by the Senate to accede to their request to designate the Deputy Speaker as co-chairman of the committee, it was clear that the members were doing a proxy war.

The issue of seniority by the Senate came under attack by the House, which threatened to go to court to test the provisions of Section 53(2) of the 1999 Constitution. The section reads: "At any joint sitting of the Senate and House of Representatives-(a) the President of senate shall preside, and in his absence the Speaker of the House of Representatives shall preside; and (b) in the absence of the persons mentioned in paragraph (a) of this subsection, the Deputy President of the Senate shall preside, and in his absence the Deputy Speaker of the House of Representatives shall preside."

Following the outrage by Nigerians that the action of the National Assembly on the Constitution amendment could derail the exercise, the presiding officers of both chambers had met once to reconcile. The meeting which held in the residence of the Senate President was the first and the last meeting both leaderships held on the issue.

For the whole of 2008, the exercise was stalled. It was not until about the middle of this year that both chambers went back to the assignment after Yar'Adua had forwarded to the National Assembly, his electoral reform bills that could not have been treated without amending the constitution. The House had quickly set sail to speedily organize a public hearing in Abuja where stakeholders' input was received.

The Senate had on the heels of the House outing held a series of engagements in Abuja, retreat in Kaduna and National Public Hearing in Abuja to receive stakeholders' presentations. It is planning a zonal public hearing for December 14 and 15, this year in the six geo-political zones of the Federation. The exercise is being separately carried out. Both houses had explained that they would meet at some point in time in the future to harmonise the provisions of the constitution amendment report.

While that outcome is still being expected, the conflict over the venue of the joint session to receive the 2010 budget proposals by President Umaru Musa Yar'Adua reared its ugly head, bordering on the same issue of supremacy contest. Yar'Adua had written separately to both chambers to seek their approval to let him address them in a joint session on the 2010 budget.

The letter had read: "In compliance with Section 81 (1) of the 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, I crave the indulgence of the National Assembly to grant me the slot of 11.00 am on Thursday, 19th November 2009 to formally address the joint session of the National Assembly on Budget 2010.

"While I thank the distinguished members of the Senate of the Federal Republic for the constancy of your cooperation and understanding, please accept distinguished Senate President, the assurances of my highest consideration."

But last Wednesday (November 18), the eve of the scheduled budget presentation to the National Assembly, the lingering cold war snowballed into public absurdity, thus botching the very critical issue of budget 2010 presentation.

Mark had met with Bankole on Wednesday, last week, in the Presidential Villa where they had discussed the joint session and the status of the presiding officer, which the Constitution (Section 53 subsection 2) vests in the Senate President. Bankole, who would have constitutionally played the role of Deputy Chairman of the National Assembly with Mark as Chairman, was said to have sought for and settled for a role at the session: to give the vote of thanks.

He was also said to have committed to ensure that the brewing face-off over the budget joint session was not allowed to fester. This was said to be against the backdrop of the superiority contest between both houses, which began with the disagreement over the designation of co-chairman for the ill-fated National Assembly Joint Committee on Constitution Review (JCCR).

Although, the previous joint sessions since 1999 had been held in the more spacious chamber of the House of Representatives, the Senate had insisted that its 251-seat chamber was large enough to accommodate members of both houses. The House, which was poised to flex muscles with the Senate, had excitedly jumped at the challenge. It said the Senate chamber was not big enough and convenient for its 360 members plus 109 members of the Senate.

The Lower House said the joint session should hold in its chamber. Then, it became a ding-dong affair as nobody was ready to shift its ground or blink and thus set the stage for a public spat, the second time between both chambers. But in between the Minna saga and the current conflict, there was the muscle flexing on the 2009 budget.

This had manifested in the delayed consideration and passage of the N3.1 trillion 2009 fiscal estimates. While the Senate had expeditiously passed the N2.9 trillion proposed budget submitted to the Legislature by Yar'Adua in line with an agreement purportedly reached with the House to ensure quick passage and commencement of implementation of the budget in January, this year.

The House had gone ahead to jack up the budget to N3.1 trillion and had forced the Senate to concur. The harmonised budget was passed in February, this year and assented to by Yar'Adua with some reservations. The leaderships of both houses have kept each other at arm's length since the face-off on the constitution amendment and the 2009 budget.

But the joint session (which would have brought both houses together under the same roof), wherever it holds,whether in the House or Senate Chambers, would be presided over by the Senate President in line with the provisions of Section 53 (2) of the 1999 Constitution. This is the constitutional reality that the House, as learnt, was trying to run away from in continuation of it needless seniority contest with the Senate.

But the Constitution does not say that Yar'Adua must present the budget proposal in a joint session. The joint session arrangement is a convention that began in 1999 and it has so far held in the more spacious chamber of the House. Section 81(1) on the presentation of the budget is very clear and both chambers are now harping on it.

Section 81(1) of the Constitution on authorization of expenditure from Consolidated Revenue of the Federation (CRF) stipulates: "The President shall cause to be prepared and laid before each house of the National Assembly at any time in each financial year estimates of the revenues and expenditure of the Federation for the next following financial year."

This is the clear option that was open to Yar'Adua last Thursday. The suggestion in some National Assembly circles was that Yar'Adua did not want the conflict to fester. But some other circles insinuated that the details of the budget proposal were not really ready and the President had to capitalize on the conflict between both chambers to mask its unpreparedness.

The game of blame is in the courts of both chambers with efforts now being made at the levels of the Executive, Legislature and PDP to break the logjam. The leadership of the party had immediately invited the Senate and House leaderships to a meeting at the party secretariat where it was resolved that both houses should follow constitutional provisions in Section 53(2) on the issue in order to deepen legislative harmony.

A legislator said last week that, "although the party leadership was not forceful in its decision at the end of the meeting, the directive that the constitutional provisions should be followed weighed in favour of the Senate." He had said that "since the Senate President is constitutionally vested with the power to preside, it stands to reason that the person that has the power to preside has the power to determine the venue of the joint sitting."

With the postponement of the budget presentation, Yar Adua's Special Adviser to the National Assembly, Senator Mohammed Abba-Aji had told Senate Correspondents last Thursday that the president would now present the proposal at a later date. Abba-Aji had dismissed insinuations that Yar'Adua deferred the budget presentation because of some health challenges, saying "He is in perfect health; there is no doubt about that."

He had said "Our purpose of today's (yesterday's) briefing is to inform you that the presentation of the 2010 budget before a joint session of the National Assembly will not hold as scheduled. It will now hold at a later date. That is the purpose of the briefing."

He had stated that "it (presentation) is not holding because we have a policy of non-interference with respect to separation of power and you all know that there is a little house keeping left to be concluded in the National Assembly between the two chambers; so we are allowing them time to put their house together.

"I have not come here to discuss the problems of the two chambers. I do not want to speculate into that. I am sure that they are capable of resolving their differences and it is not something that is new. This kind of things happens in bicameral legislatures all around the world; so, it is not something that they will not be able to put behind them; so while we are confident that they are capable of doing that very soon, we are nonetheless giving them time to do so."

Abba-Aji had assured that the budget was ready for presentation, saying "I can tell you categorically because I am member of the presidential budget committee that the budget was ready long time ago. Even the president speech is ready, and we do not need excuses such as this; besides if you look at the provision of Section 81 of the constitution, it just says that the president shall cause to be prepared and be laid before each chamber of the National Assembly; so we do not need excuses such as this. We are ready with the budget."

He had pointed out: "Laying the budget or presentation of the budget before the National Assembly has come by convention. This has been the practice; this has been the tradition; so, it is not something that we are refusing to do; it is something that we are allowing time for us to do so."

The leadership of the party and other influential elders in the party have already launched a series of meetings with the leadership of the National Assembly to sort out the disagreement to enable Yar'Adua present the 2010 budget this week to Federal Legislature. otherwise, the window provided by Section 81(1) of the 1999 Constitution could prove salutary in the immediate political expediency.

But regardless of the expected resolution, the disagreement between both chambers on an issue as simple as venue of joint sitting has exposed the underbelly of the National Assembly and rendered tentative the disposition of the entire Parliament to budgeting, especially when dealing with the nitty-gritty of the fiscal estimates particularly those that require harmonisation and concurrence by both chambers. A number of disagreements may still crystallize during the process of budget consideration. Nigerians are prepared to watch the supremacy contest for seniority that is unfolding in the Parliament in the domain of presentation of the 2010 budget.