President Umaru Yar�Adua on Wednesday said that the crisis in the House of Representatives could only help to deepen democracy in the country, as against the fears that it was capable of truncating it.
The President, in a reaction to insinuations in certain quarters that his decision not to interfere in the crisis was dangerous, said in a statement in Abuja that he believed that the crisis would propel honest and genuine interactions that would ensure its resolution.
Yar�Adua, according to the statement by his Special Adviser on Communications, Mr. Segun Adeniyi, said he believed that members of the pro and anti-Etteh groups in the House would rise beyond partisan and narrow interests �using their own rules and internal process to resolve the crisis in the national interest.�
The President said that while his decision not to intervene in the crisis might not appeal to some critics, it was the only way to demonstrate his commitment to promoting democracy anchored on due process, rule of law and separation of powers.
The President�s spokesman said, �It will therefore amount to a negation of values he believes in for the President to demand the resignation of the Speaker as some people want him to do.
�In seeking a short-cut route to resolving the crisis in the House of Representatives, the President, according to some critics, should demand the resignation of Speaker Patricia Etteh. His refusal to heed this call has, therefore, led to all kinds of name calling and unfair comments, some indeed bordering on blackmail.
�The benefit of hindsight, especially with regards to recent experience, should teach that executive interference in the internal affairs of other arms of government (be it legislature or judiciary) is antithetical to the promotion of democracy anchored on the rule of law, no matter the seeming short-term advantage.
�People forget that we had a similar situation in the past when, following a crisis which also bordered on allegations of corruption and abuse of office in the legislative arm, the then President, in a national broadcast, told the world that certain members of the National Assembly took bribes.
�Now, of the two former House of Representatives members publicly indicted in that unfortunate episode, one is a governor and the other a senator. Instructively, neither of them was even indicted in the report compiled by the same government before the April elections, raising questions about the propriety of executive intervention in an issue that is better internally resolved by the legislature or at best adjudicated upon by the judiciary.�
Oct252007