The Senior Special Assistant to the President on National Assembly Matters (Senate) Sen. Ita Enang, on Tuesday assured that there would be a very good relationship between the executive and the legislature this year.
Enang said Nigerians will experience a harmonious, concord and cooperation among the two arms of government.
He told National Assembly correspondents (Senate) during a briefing that “You are not going to have uncommon compromise and not something combustible.
“If the committees in the 7th National Assembly were doing their work, by checking what was happening in the office of the National Security Adviser (NSA), Petroleum Ministry, we would not have had Diezanigate and all the other gates.
“I feel guilty that such situation arose, I want to apologize. If the legislature has done its duty properly like it is doing now presently, I think we will not have this situation”
He stressed that padding was a new word in the legislative lexicon “so we have to define it as a new matter. In my own opinion, padding is an illegal or unlawful insertion by a person who is not expected to do it .Therefore unless a bill has been passed and forwarded to Mr President for assent, there can be no padding.
On the 2018 Budget that was pending before the legislature, but the executive was free to make inputs and such was never did not constitute padding.
According to him: “Whenever the executive presents a bill before the House of Assembly or the National Assembly, then the instrument is working in the progress, it is a draft. In the course of considering legislation, there can be no padding because then either side can make inputs,”
He however urged both the executive and the legislature to “work and politick less and concentrating on the legislation and least concentrating on other matters.”
