When someone said somewhere that the recent deaths in the two chambers of the National Assembly could be a result of indigestion from over feeding, he was accused of having a sense of morbid humour. Of course the person was referring to the overindulgence that may necessarily flow from the excessive and greedy allowances the legislators are hefting from the commonwealth. While mourning the departed legislators, there appears to be another endangerment hunting the hallowed chambers of the Senate.
Get loquacious and suffer deprivations. To make matters worse, the challenge facing the feasting senators are from within and outside the chambers. While the senate president and his protégées are mercilessly hunting for senators who hold divergent views from their conclave, state governors who claim to be the president’s boys are beneficiating from a rash of criminal indictments against the garrulous senators that trouble them.
In the Senate, any senator who holds a different opinion from the dominant interests and expresses such disagreement publicly, risks suspension. The punishment is usually swift where the alternative opinion involves leaking the cherished secret of the Senate leadership who prefer to be seen as distinguished. To achieve that purpose, a henchman of the leadership will claim in plenary that his privileges have been breached, whereupon the so-called ethics committee will initiate their predetermined kangaroo process.
Perhaps the state governors involved have learnt the gory practice of suppressing dissent, cavalierly practiced by the Senate leadership, while the majority look on like morons. The result is that in some states, senators have been declared persona non grata, and banned more or less from visiting their constituency, while in some other states, senators have what they allege are trumped charges of murder or gun running, orchestrated by the police against them. Considering that the police and the courts are involved in some of the matters, one cannot comment on whether they are being framed.
But while exercising that restraint, one can still ask, how come it is the two senators who have political issues to grind with their state governors that have become involved in sundry crimes? In Kaduna State, where the governor, Mallam Nasir El-Rufai is in a running battle with distinguished Senator Shehu Sani, the latter is alleged to be implicated in a murder case, while in Kogi State where Governor Yahaya is engaged in a cat and mouse game with the querulous Dino Melaye, the latter is accused of gun running, among other charges.
In Kano State, where the former governor, Rabiu Kwankwaso is involved in a power tussle with his former protégé, now Governor Abdullahi Ganduje, the senator has suddenly become an endangered species in the state. While the senators are crying foul and alleging intimidation by the governors against their colleagues, it is all mum when they are confronted with the intimidation going on within the hallowed chambers of the Senate against their colleagues.
Last week, Senator Ovie Omo-Agege was suspended for 90 days for alleging that the bill passed recently by the National Assembly to reorder the 2019 general elections in their favour was aimed at President Muhammadu Buhari. Without doubt, the bill was passed to cater for the ambition of the senators, and to tamper the ambition of the president, yet the Senate agreed to punish a colleague for stating the obvious. Of course, the bill was passed because the senators are afraid that if the presidential election is held first and President Buhari wins, he could influence their re-election bid.
So because Senator Omo-Agege holds a dissenting opinion and had the temerity to say it openly, Senator Melaye claimed few weeks ago that his integrity as a lawmaker and that of the Senate have been besmirched, leading to the suspension order of last week. Melaye and the Senate leadership that he works for cannot convince Nigerians that Omo-Agege was punished for casting aspersion on the integrity of the Senate, instead of, exposing the secrets of the senators. Yet, the Senate would claim to be a democratic institution.
How can holding a different opinion even if unpopular within the Senate amount to denigration of the common integrity of the body? Or how can ascribing a motive for passing a bill even if wrong, ridicule the Senate? Of course, holding an opinion and pushing it is a democratic entitlement and Senator Melaye who is in a running battle with his state governor failed to see the irony in moving against Omo-Agege, when he (Melaye) is possibly endangered in Kogi State, because he loquaciously holds a divergent political opinion from the governor.
While I concede that the legislators are entitled to provide guidelines to regulate the conduct of its members, it is unconstitutional and insensible to leave the door so wide open and unpredictable that they become manipulable by their leaders. After all, legislators are elected to represent divergent political interests of their constituencies; so how can pursuing that primary responsibility which is underscored sometimes in holding divergent opinions be regarded as anathema to the wellbeing of the institution?
What can besmirch the integrity of the Senate is when for instance, a member engages in clearly criminal conduct, whether or not the person has been convicted by a court of law. Again where a senator by his conduct brings the general reputation of the Senate to ridicule, for instance by engaging in a fight or rape, or when a senator mismanages the resources put at his disposal, then members can genuinely claim that their collective integrity has been besmirched by such conduct of their colleague, and they can administratively punish such senator.
But to whimsically delimit free speech, the right to freedom of expression, right to freedom of association, among other rights duly guaranteed by the 1999 constitution (as amended) and several international protocols, just to cover the secrets of the legislators and turn it into a conclave should be unacceptable to all democrats. Unfortunately the abnormality of suspending their colleagues for minor infractions has become the norm in the legislative assemblies, and this is despite the intervention of the courts in a number of cases, stating that such actions are unconstitutional. Perhaps because the Senate is a conclave of sinners, at least with regards to their unconstitutional allowances, majority of their members are unnerved when intimidated by their leaders.
But it is still the courts can save our legislators from the rambunctious leaders they always foist on themselves, whether at the federal of state levels. For the practice of excommunication by sinners, practised impulsively by legislators is gaining currency across the country. In many states, minority legislators are seen as nuisance and as such expendables; and it has become common for the majority to use suspension from plenary as the easiest way to further emasculate the minority. Unfortunately, the current Senate leadership is making a hash of this careless conduct.