Presidency: We Are Not Lobbying Senate for Buratai, Others’ Confirmation

The Presidency yesterday declared that it was not lobbying the Senate for the confirmation of the former Chief of Defence Staff (CDS), General Gabriel Olonisakin (rtd) and other erstwhile service chiefs as non-career Ambassadors.

President Muhammadu Buhari had last week forwarded to the Senate the name of Olonisakin alongside Lt. Gen. Tukur Y. Buratai (rtd), Vice Admiral Ibok-Ete Ibas (rtd), Air Marshal Sadique Abubakar (rtd), and Air Vice Marshal Mohammed S. Usman (rtd), for confirmation as non-career Ambassadors.

The Senior Special Assistant to the President on National Assembly Matters (Senate), Senator Babajide Omoworare, told journalists yesterday that the Presidency has no intention to lobby the Senate as it commences the screening of the non-career Ambassadors today (Tuesday).

He, however, stressed that there is nothing wrong with lobbying which is part of a normal democratic system.

His words: “I am not aware of any lobbying going on but if there is lobbying going on for erstwhile service chiefs to pass I sincerely think it is in order; it is not an aberration; it’s not a transgression, it’s not a sign for lobbying to occur”.

The SSA said lobbying is a two-way thing in democracy with the executive lobbying the legislature and vice versa.

“You cannot achieve anything if you don’t talk to each other. Yes, a lot of people will tell you that the parliament is the watchdog of the executive; yes, but you can hardly achieve anything without collaboration and coordination, negotiation. Even private members bill if you want your bill to pass you will try your best to talk to your colleagues to pass your bill.

“So, there is no problem with lobbying, the executive lobbies legislators 24 hours seven days of the week, the same way the legislators lobby the Presidency same way. If you have a private members bill and you sit in your office and you think the President will assent to it without you lobbying you are making a mistake because after all section 58 of the constitution gives the President the power to either sign or withhold the assent subject to upturning of his veto by the parliament with twobthird of the majority votes”, the presidential aide explained.

On his part, speaking on the erstwhile service chiefs scaling, the Senate hurdle, the Senate Leader, Senator Yahaya Abdullahi, said:

“Communications for the confirmation would be read hopefully by the Senate president tomorrow and whatever happen we will pass it on to the committee on foreign affairs and then the committee on foreign affairs will now do its deliberation.

“I am not one under this situation to preempt whatever the committee is going to decide because the committee is made up of several responsible and experienced senators who have also been ambassadors themselves so they will know exactly what are required for people to be appointed as ambassadors to represent the country in whatever country.