By Mon-Charles Egbo
Smarting from an agonizing era of health system and socio-economic decline that threatened humanity and occasioned by the COVID-19 pandemic, Nigeria was confronted with yet another war-like situation that shook the nation to its foundations. What started as a peaceful protest demanding the disbandment of a unit of the police, called the Special Anti-Robbery Squad, SARS, over brutality and sundry impunities, suddenly metamorphosed to an uncontrollable scenario where lives were lost, businesses attacked with also properties and infrastructures vandalized and burnt randomly.
Although, government was swift to disband the outfit and replaced it with what is known as the Special Weapons and Tactics team, SWAT, it did not in any way assuage the feelings and dispositions of the protesters. It rather assumed a horrific dimension of massive expression of accumulated anger and frustration, resulting in those unpalatable outcomes such that people were left wondering whether the demonstration was truly about SARS. Across the country and in a geometric proportion, there were palpable fears and heightened anxieties in the land which grew by day. And sadly, it got worsened by the silence of the federal government. There were loud and persistent clamours, both from within and outside the country, for President Muhammadu Buhari to speak up at least to the youth on the streets. This sign-posted yet another systemic failure, reflecting a sense of disconnect between the government and the governed, especially the youth in this instance. The ship of the Nigerian state was literally sinking as genocide was at sight.
But to Ahmad Lawan, that was yet another call to duty. The president of the 9th senate at every contact point leaves an impression that indeed, legislature is the conscience of the nation. This has he variously and repeatedly demonstrated both in words and deeds. Another defining attribute of Lawan’s leadership of the legislature is his commitment to collaboration with the other arms of government, particularly the executive. Though a section of the elite view it otherwise, given his deep sense of history, requisite experience in legislative practice and excellence as well as vast knowledge in policy and governance, Lawan advocates that it is only by productive partnership and cooperation amongst the branches of government that the masses can have a fair deal in governance which translates to national development.
Driven by sense of responsiveness and empathy Lawan has distinguished himself as a true voice of the masses relative to good governance through regular legislative interventions. Verifiably, he has always stood to be counted on the side of the people whenever it becomes necessary.
At the peak of the #EndSARS protest, Lawan, in the company of the Speaker, Femi Gbajabiamila, took the case to President Buhari’s bosom. Shortly after their closed door meeting, there was a presidential broadcast. Lawan did not stop there. He openly assured “our youths that the NASS will collaborate with the Executives to ensure justice for victims of misconduct and rights abuses by personnel of the disbanded Special Anti-Robbery Squad of the Nigeria Police.
“In the same vein, to discourage impunity, we will insist that the perpetrators of the alleged abuses be prosecuted and sanctioned as appropriate”. He however regretted that “in the unfortunate hijack of the protests, hoodlums unleashed horrifying violence, arson, looting and wanton destruction of public and private property in the country”.
It would be recalled that at a time national insecurity was getting precarious, Ahmad Lawan lamented to the executive that “the security situation in our country requires serious attention and due consideration by the senate and indeed the national assembly. Recently the security in the country had deteriorated and the attendant loss of lives is not acceptable. We need to secure the lives and property of our citizens, as enshrined in our constitution. We all are witnesses to how our economy is also affected by the inclement security situation. Therefore, we need to speedily seek for solutions to fix the security problem bedeviling our dear country. There is urgent need for paradigm shift and reform of the architecture and structure of our security systems”.
Similarly when the outbreak of the coronavirus elicited adverse actions from the government, Ahmad Lawan was on his toes to ensure the best for the masses. Aside other numerous interventions, including meeting President Bihari on the urgent need to talk to Nigerians; he warned the government against locking down the country without adequate provision for palliatives for the people. According to him, “if we have to eventually shut down our country, then as a government we must be prepared to have some relief for the most ordinary people. As a government, we must find our own money to fund something for our people, because the United States of America that is talked about or the British Parliament is because this involves public funds. I’m not seeing anything at the moment targeted at providing some relief. If we lock up Nigeria today, then we will wake-up trouble, because the majority of our citizens go to the market every day before they can get something to eat. So, you lock them up in their houses with a threat of disease and without food. We need to have something, a plan of some sorts, in addition to making sure we don’t lock up the farmers market for example, where people can easily go and buy something and of course pharmacies. We need to have some kind of supplies to people”.
He further took his advocacy to the national social investment programme, NSIP. This is an initiative aimed at impacting on the masses but there were outcries trailing its manner of implementation. Canvassing for a deliberate collaboration between the executive and the legislature towards strengthening the operations of NSIP for the overall benefit of the people, Lawan protested that “we need to work together with you to ensure that there is effectiveness, there is efficiency; that those who are supposed to benefit, benefit directly. We believe that when we work together, the Executive side of government and the National Assembly as representatives of the people, we will be able to reach much more of these people who are in serious distress even before the Coronavirus. Now with Coronavirus, they need our attention more than ever before. The time has come that we review the ways and manner we use to deliver the services under the SIP to Nigerians. We need to be better in terms of strategy for delivery and definitely, what we have been doing in the past cannot deliver exactly what will solve the challenges of the most ordinary and most vulnerable Nigerians. So we need to put on our thinking cap and work out some strategies on how to identify the poorest persons in Nigeria. I think we have not been able to reach far out there to get them properly captured”.
Apparently drawing from the experiences of the NSIP, Lawan demanded for effective collaboration in implementing the 774, 000 jobs targeted at the youth population of the country. Among his positions, the National Directorate of Employment, NDE, for-whom the budget for the programme was passed by the National Assembly, should be the authorized agency for the implementation for effectiveness. He argued that “NDE has the capacity to implement the programme. So that programme is an NDE programme approved by the National Assembly. It is within the purview of our committees to demand an explanation on the process and procedure through which the programme would be implemented. We stand by that. The National Assembly is saying that until the executive arm of government comes to explain how they will implement that programme; we passed the budget for NDE to go and implement because it has the capacity. Our purpose is not just to approve money”. In other words, the legislature must ensure that the programme would be implemented as conceived and designed by the originating agency, so as to maximally achieve the desired goal of improving the welfare and safety of the people.
Furthermore, the Niger-Delta Development Commission, NDDC, was created primarily to improve the lots of the people of the region. But for over two decades after, there was nothing on ground to justify the initiative despite huge investments. Rather, there were reports of corruption and maladministration bedeviling the agency. This of course challenged Ahmad Lawan to intervene by setting up an ad-hoc senate committee to dispassionately review them. He was very vocal that “we have a mindset and our mindset in the Senate is that we must have NDDC that is efficient in service delivery to the people of Niger Delta. This is the essence of setting up that commission. So, we want to see a situation where the very limited resources appropriated for NDDC are prudently and transparently deployed for the development of the Niger Delta region. This is our mindset and we will not shy away from our responsibility at any time we feel that is not happening”.
It is common knowledge that one of the major reasons for slow pace of national development is absence of sustainable public power supply. Humongous investments have been made in this critical sector of the economy but nothing meaningful has come out of it. In response to this, Lawan lamented that “if there’s any sector of our economy that is so important and yet so challenged, it is the power sector. I believe that this is a sector that needs a declaration of emergency. The truth is that we all know what is wrong. What we really need to do is to have the political will to take on the challenges generally. From the electricity power reform of 2005 to the privatization of GENCOS and DISCOS and to what is happening today, we know that everything is a fraud. If we play the ostrich, in the next 10 years we will be talking about the same things. I think the time has come for us to have courage”.
Consequently, he empowered a legislative committee to “to investigate the trillions spent in the power sector, and find out what has happened so far. Government needs to look at this whole thing. Maybe government is not doing its own part. We need to find out. There is lack of capital. We feel very bad. There is no electricity and the country is suffering. I think it’s time for Nigeria to consider reversing the privatization of the power sector or they should just cancel the entire privatization process completely. If we leave it, we may not have power for another ten years. We expected efficiency and something better. The distribution companies have no capacity to supply us power. We shouldn’t continue to give them money. They are private businesses. We need to review this whole thing”.
Ahmad Lawan as a seasoned administrator understands that governance and party politics are relatively inseparable. There was a time the governing APC was drifting towards implosion such that the principal actors were grossly distracted, including presidency; and governance was suffering thereby progressively aggravating the weak socioeconomic state of the nation. It took the patriotic intervention of Lawan through a private visit to President Muhammadu Buhari for the party to become saved from the brinks.
Objective-minded Nigerians are today witnesses to the eventual outputs of those legislative interventions aimed at facilitating good governance and service delivery. And in conclusion therefore, the senate president Ahmad Lawan is delivering in that direction simply because he has a way of intelligently reading and interpreting the mood of the public, given his pedigree and disposition as a true leader imbued with high level of responsiveness and empathy.
- Egbo is print media aide to President of the Senate
