.
The powers of the clerk are also awesome, and he or she is the one who presides over the election of the presiding officers. On the inauguration day, the CNA is perhaps the most important person in the legislative branch of government, given his ability to interpret the rules that guide the elections.
The awesome power of the clerk in this dispensation was first manifested in 2007 when the then CNA, Alhaji Nasir Arab turned his back to the Senate rule on ranking and allowed Senator George Akume to stand in the leadership election against Senator David Mark.
Though never established, the speculation at that time was that Arab was swayed by the relationship between the then Deputy Clerk of the National Assembly, DCNA, Mr. Yomi Ogunyomi and Akume, who were contemporaries at the University of Ibadan.
Mr. Ogunyomi, was the second DCNA ever in the life of the National Assembly having succeeded Arab, the first person to hold the office and for whom the office was created.
Arab became the DCNA when he was at the point of being promoted from Clerk of the House of Representatives to Clerk of the Senate. However, for some reasons the Chuba Okadigbo Senate was not disposed to having Arab as Clerk and so the office of DCNA was created and it became Arab’s lot. He eventually became the CNA on the retirement of the then CNA, Ibrahim Salim.
Following Arab’s appointment as CNA the then Clerk of the Senate, Ogunyomi who had earlier been the Clerk of the House of Representatives and subsequently promoted to Clerk of the Senate emerged as DCNA and eventually emerged as CNA when Arab retired from service.
Some intrigues, however, emerged after Ogunyomi’s retirement when for the first time a non-legislative expert in the person of Alhaji Maikasuwa was appointed as Clerk of the National Assembly. For whatever reasons, Mr. Ben Efeturi, one of the most experienced legislative staff in the National Assembly who was Clerk of the Senate was passed over for the post of DCNA and Mr. Adejokun Olumiyiwal from the House was appointed as DCNA. When Mr. Adejokun retired from service, Mr. Efeturi was eventually promoted to the office of DCNA working under Maikasuwa.
With Maikasuwa now about to exit the service, the plan by the National Assembly Service Commission to leapfrog the Clerk of the House of Representatives, Mr. Sani Omolori to become the CNA ahead of the incumbent Clerk of the Senate and the DCNA is now the subject of much controversy.
The president of the Senate, Senator Bukola Saraki is particularly miffed by the move and his instruction to the Chairman of the NASC Dr. Adamu Fika to reverse the appointment of Omolori as acting CNA has been publicly rejected by Fika.
Some allege that Fika may be banking on the fact that Saraki’s troubles at the Code of Conduct Tribunal may diminish his capacity to fight, but he may well forget that when it comes to the NASC, that the law establishing it does not even give the president the right to appoint the members.
Indeed, given the established pattern of promotion from Clerk of the House to Clerk of the Senate and then DCNA and CNA, the question as to why Fika wants to disregard that pattern and leapfrog Omolori to CNA is an issue that is now even dividing the National Assembly Service Commission.
Even more pernicious was the open letter of seven of the 12 commissioners who strongly dissociated themselves from Fika’s action. They accused Fika of acting unilaterally and against the decision as taken by the majority of the commissioners as they warned him that being chairman did not mean that he was the commission.
Whither PDP?
The decision of the National Executive Committee, NEC of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP to zone the office of national chairman to the Northeast inevitably positions the incumbent chairman, Senator Ali Modu Sheriff to retain the position in the forthcoming national convention.
What becomes of the party is now anybody’s guess given the undying opposition of party puritans and Southwest chieftains to the emergence of Sheriff.
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