The House of Representatives elect for Bende Federal Constituency, Hon. Benjamin Kalu has revealed that there is need for the legislative and executive arms of government to work together for the interest of the country in 9th National Assembly.
Speaking with Igbere TV and other journalists after the five days orientation program in Abuja, BenKalu noted that there was no unity between the legislative and the executive in the 8th National Assembly, which had a negative impact on the performance of the government.
According to him, “when you talk about the Inter government relationship which many people have described as ‘IGR’, it has two arms to it, we have the vertical and the horizontal. “
” The vertical has to do with how the federal government relates with the states, how the states relate with the local government and how the states relate with one another and when you talk about the horizontal aspect, you talk about the principles of separation of power, how the judiciary and legislative relate to one another “.
” What we run in Nigeria is not a unitary government neither is it a parliamentary, we run a presidential system of government and we also have a multi party system “.
“These are some of the elements that make it very difficult for this Inter relationship to take place.”
“But suffix it to say that this Inter dependence is there and it is very important because non of the arms can exercise their function fully in isolation of the other. No government is complete without the whole team working together.”
“There is a bit of the judiciary in the legislature and there is a bit of the legislature in the judiciary when they use the Stare decisis, judiciary precedence to make law “.
” Also, there is a bit of the legislature in the executive when the executive presents appropriation bills. You found out that they play the role of each other once in a while.”
“In the last assembly, there was an obvious demarcation of ‘we are the legislature, we remain the legislature, you are the executive, you remain the executive. You don’t call the short for us, we don’t call the short for you.’ That’s what the 9th Assembly wants to eliminate and that’s the reason for this kind of lecture we had today “.
Kalu commended the organizers of the program and said the 9th National Assembly will try to work harmoniously with executive arm of the government.
“We have seen the need for all the arms of the government to work together. We have seen the need to collapse our political differences when we arrive at the National Assembly. “
“The face of the National Assembly should not be painted with the colours of the party, it should be painted with the good laws that we want for the development of our nation.”
“So, we should not be holding there, the philosophy of our party against our self interest and the interest of the nation. “
“Through inter-relation, you will see people collapsing their interests and also understand why the executive has this particular policy and objective. And the legislature will support the executive to achieve but that doesn’t mean that the checks and balances role of the legislature will be thrown into the trash can “.
” It means that we will do our job of dog watching in each of them, the same way that they will be doing to us but doing that harmoniously “.
Kalu also noted that there will be problem once in a while but it should be reconciled so that it will not affect the development of the nation.
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