By Haruna Salami
As the dust over the altercation between the Minister of State for Labour and Employment, Festus Keyamo and the Senate is yet to settle down, the Senate President, Ahmad Lawan has vowed that no appointee of the President will be allowed to dent the cordial working relationship between the two arms of government.
Lawan made the assertion at an interactive session with members of the Senate Press Corps on Monday.
It will be recalled that a serious argument erupted between the Senate Committee on Labour and Employment and Keyamo a fortnight ago over the implementation of 774,000 public works jobs in all the local governments of the country.
The Senate President who emphasised the importance of cordial working relationship of the various arms of government said, “it is not correct that when you work in harmony you surrender your power. The National Assembly will continue to insist on oversight.
“So long as we can appropriate funds, which is one of our major mandates provided by the constitution, we are equally empowered by the same constitution to oversight how such projects are implemented and executed; how the processes and procedures are established, designed and implemented.”
According to him, the only important person in the presidency is the president who was elected by Nigerians; every other person is hired by him to execute his project.
He said NASS approved N52 billion for the 774,000 public works jobs, (1,000 per local government), indicating the support of the legislature for the programme to be executed by the National Directorate of Employment, NDE, adding that it was not meant for the ministry headquarters to highjack.
Lawan said NASS will definitely not shy away from it’s responsibility on this.
“We represent the people of this country. We went round to campaign in different parts. The National Assembly is a mini Nigeria. We know what our people want, we know what they need and we will do only those things that in our judgement and in the information we gather, will make life better for Nigerians,” he stressed.
Lawan also emphasized that those who feel that the lawmakers were not working because they are not fighting with executive are just “wasting their time”.
