Saraki Has No Power to Appoint or Reverse Appointment of National Assembly Clerk

Unsurprisingl, the embattled Senate President Bukola Saraki has once again embroiled himself in an embarrassing supremacy tussle with the Chairman of the National Assembly Commission, Malam Adamu Fika.

Saraki wrote a letter to Fika yesterday, directing him to reverse the appointment of Mr Omolori as the Acting Clerk of the Senate. Instead, he gave the name of his prefered candidate that should take up the position.

This blunder by Saraki is turntamount to interfering with the work and responsibility of the National Assembly Commission whose Act clearly gives it full powers and independence from influence or control by any person or body, including the National Assembly.
The senate President has no right to determine who is appointed as Ckerk and neither does he qualify by law establishing the Commission to be consulted before appointments are made. Where such was previously done, it must have been purely out of courtesy by the Chairman and members of the Commission and not by rule.

SECTION 7 of the NASS Commision Act clearly states that: “In excercising its powers to make APPOINTMENTS or excercise disciplinary control over persons, the Commission SHALL NOT BE SUBJECTED TO THE DIRECTION OR CONTROL OF ANY AUTHORITY OR PERSON.”

Also section 7 (1) exclusively gives power toThe Commission to:

(a) Formulate and implement guidelines for its functions;
(b) Appoint persons to hold or act in the office of
(i) Clerk of the National Assebly (NASS)
(ii) Deputy Clerrk of NASS
(iii) The Clerk of Senate
(iv) Deputy Clerk of Senate
(v) Clerk of House of Reps
(vi) Deputy Clerk of House of Reps and
(vii) All other offices in the service of the National Assembly

The only role the National Assembly gets to play in the determination of the fate of the Clerk can be found in section 11 where it states, ” a person holding the Office to the Clerk SHALL ONLY BE REMOVED BY THE COMMISSION acting on address support

Abdulkadir Bin Abdulmalik