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The Senate Leader, Ali Ndume, has said that the amendment of Code of Conduct Bureau (CCB) Act by the Senate had nothing to do with ongoing trial of the president of the Senate, Bukola Saraki. Reacting to the debate which the issue has generated among Nigerians, Mr. Ndume told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Maiduguri on Tuesday that the National Assembly had no particular interest in the bill.
“It is insulting on us to say that we are doing the bidding of Saraki, because laws are not made in retrospect.
“If we make a law today, it cannot immediately invalidate the existing laws on the same issue,” he said.
He said the main concern of the National Assembly was to make the organisation more effective in its functions.
“The amendment focused mainly on two things: that is the age of the chairman of the CCB and the number of persons to be appointed as members of the bureau or the tribunal,” Mr. Ndume said.
He added that other issues in the amendment of the Act were secondary to the main ones, pointing out that the Bill for the amendment “did not even emanate from the senate’’.
“Nigerians should know that the bill emanated from the House of Representatives; our own duty was just to concur.
“Since I became the Senate Leader of the 8th Assembly I made a proposition that all bills coming from the house must not be allowed to suffer set back, so, we look at those bills every Thursday for consideration,” he said.
Mr. Ndume added that as far as he was concerned “there is no big deal in the bill; laws are not made for individuals.
“The Senate President is Saraki, but Saraki is not the Senators’ president,” he said.
He cautioned that rather than criticise the bill “blindly”, Nigerians should look at its merit and other sides, in the interest of the country.
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