9th Senate never a Rubber Stamp entity – Moro, Barkiya

Sen. Abba Moro (PDP-Benue) and Sen. Kabir Barkiya (APC-Katsina) have rejected suggestions that the outgoing 9th Senate was a mere “rubber stamp” to the executive.

There have been allegations that the 2019–2023 Senate was a mere rubber stamp for the executive, with critics insisting that it did not exercise its role of checking the executive.

But the duo, in an interview in Abuja on Saturday, said that the 9th Senate, whose legislative year has ended, performed well.

Moro, who will be returning to the 10th Senate, said that the lawmakers were committed to a better Nigeria.

“With all sense of responsibility, the 9th Senate has performed fairly well.

“It’s unfortunate that certain things took place that warranted the nicknaming of the 9th Senate as a mere rubber stamp.

“Sometimes some of the criticisms of the activities of the senate of the 9th assembly are borne out of a lack of proper understanding of the dynamics of parliamentary practice.

“And then, of course, the relationship between the executive and the legislature, making laws and providing for good governance, does not require avoidable confrontations.

“It is not everything that comes from the executive that is wrong, as people will want to think.”

Moro said that bills by the Executive that the Senate rejected included the Inland Water Authority (Amendment) Bill.

“The bill to amend the Inland Water Authority Act was rejected. It is a bill that the executive had long wanted, according to our own understanding.

“That bill would have been introduced through the back door because the House of Representatives would have passed it. They needed the concurrence of the Senate to make it go through.

“Some appointments by the immediate past administration were rejected.

“It is not in all circumstances that the Senate has looked like a lame dog senate or a rubber stamp.

“In exceptional circumstances, I think the Senate stood up to the bidding and had done the right thing to ensure that the right things were done for Nigerians.”

On the successes of the 9th Senate, the lawmaker said that it introduced some innovations.

“Some reformative activities are taking place, amendments have been made to old and traditional ways of doing things.

“We have created a new innovative platform for activities to take place with less human touch, and more digital application or technology.”

Moro further said that the electoral process, in spite of the human errors that had complicated it, witnessed a fine attempt at introducing technology into the process.

He said that the intention was to minimize the human limitations that had occasioned the scuttling of the electoral process.

“Our efforts were targeted at introducing fine technology.

“For some of us, who would have expected that the electoral process is digitized all through, from accreditation to voting to transmission of results and calculation of results, all of them would have been technology-driven.”

For Barkiya, the actions taken by the 9th Senate were nothing compared to the tag “rubber stamp”.

He said that all bills and motions were debated and voted on, so calling the 9th Senate a rubber stamp would hold no water.

Barkiya said that the outgoing assembly had recorded so many successes, including passing the Constitution Amendment Bill and the Petroleum Industry Bill (PIB), now an Act.