In this interview with reporters in Abuja, Senator Abu Ibrahim, Chairman, Senate Committee on Police Affairs, bared his mind on the one year anniversary of the Eight Senate and some controversies the Senate encountered during the period. Assistant Editor, Onyedi Ojiabor, was at the briefing and reports
How will you appraise the performance of the Senate in the past one year?
Unfortunately Nigerians have put up a system whereby we access the performance of the National Assembly in terms of bills, but we forget that there are other functions of the parliament. Of course, bills are very important, in fact, it is very vital because there is no way we can do without bills. But there are other equally important functions and they include the functions of passing the budget approvals, followed by the oversight functions, which I think is very important. So, I believe Nigerians should begin to see the performance of the National Assembly with the inclusiveness of other functions and parameters, and not just making laws or the number of bills, or the number of motions.
Do you consider the committee works more important than the making of laws that will improve the lives of Nigerians?
I am not saying they are not important, they are important but, if I were to access the performance of the National Assembly, I will give law-making 40 percent and others 60 percent. If you go to America, committees are more important. You just watch the Senate proceedings, you are only going to attend when you are interested in voting on what concerns you because of consensus. But committees are more active, powerful and potent. So, the most important thing is how we can perform our functions more effectively as committees and I realise, as the Chairman of the Senate Committee on Police Affairs, that if you try hard, you can bring a lot of changes. I can see myself as quite educated in the problems of the police and systematically, I try to sort them out. Already, I have a draft bill, which is on the financing of the police. I call it police development fund. Without proper funding of the police, we cannot progress. But people do not appreciate their challenges. They say the police is corrupt and so on, but have we really given them all the necessary funds, equipment and training? Of course these are what make a person to have the capability to protect and secure the environment. Your ability to even understand your own functions, especially in a changing political situation is very important. You have to understand the issue of rule of law, the respect of human dignity, and others. If you are not trained and you are just given a gun, then you are not given your allowances and tomorrow morning you don’t know if you will be able to afford a decent breakfast, you will end up venting your frustration on the common man. So obviously, the assessment should include, apart from the number of bills passed into law, how the committees performed. This is where the powers and functions of the National Assembly are very important. That also is drawn again from the budget; approving the budget and seeing that the budget is implemented. If this is done very well, all these things about wastefulness we see would not have happened. There will be a lot of savings. We will even have the capacity to employ an engineer to access the cost of projects being executed by the ministries, but we are not giving this function the serious attention it deserves.
The Senate has been accused, even by the executive, of neglecting its oversight functions, why is this so?
Since I came to the Senate, this is my forth time, we never cared. I don’t know if we are still developing as National Assembly, but really, that should be the most important function of the National Assembly, even better than making laws, which is natural, because it is even the executive that should be sending bills to be passed into law. Although we have private members bills, the bills should come from the executive. The parliament should be the important overseer of the executive. So, we are not giving that function of the National Assembly better assessment. I wish you can take it committee by committee and see how we have fared, rather than considering what senators have done individually. Look at the quantities, what have they done, have they been meeting, have they been engaging their constituents, which is where they are supervising; these would be more profitable to Nigerians.
What are the challenges facing the effective performance of the Senate in delivering its responsibilities?
Funding is one, because we do not care much about improving it; that is why we do not fund it properly. As I have said before, on ourselves, we have not got ourselves properly, especially with about 80 senators who are new in the Senate. They are not even trained, experience is not there. So, I think we need to really direct ourselves next year. I spoke to some of my colleagues on how to raise the budget standard and budgeting, so we think the Senate should come with a new approach rather than allowing just cumulative budget instead of the details. This is necessary because we need details to consider the budget, but we don’t see the details. It is only when the budget goes out there that we start talking about the details. Up till today, I don’t know the details of my own committee. It should not be like that, at least, as the committee chairman, I should know the details of my own committee; what we have done, what has been approved as budget by the Appropriation Committee and taken to the executive as approved. Not that someone in the Appropriation Committee will go and change everything.
But by your rules, you have the right to demand for the details of the budget from the Appropriation Committee; why are you not demanding for them?
We have the right to demand for the details, but what I am saying is if we do not start early, when it is too late, there is nothing you can do. Is it when the President is waiting for you to sign the budget that you will start raising the issues of the details? Then, there is the issue of perception by Nigerians that you have done what has been approved. But we can start early, and I think we should come out with some measures about this. I think we should make it mandatory in the system that when the budget comes early, then the Appropriation Committee must bring the details, not the whole Senate, but the committees should know the details of what they have approved and what has gone into the final figures of the budget.
Is anything preventing the Senate from having a timetable for the presentation and processing of the budget to avoid issue of time constraints?
Probably, we should look into providing either a bill or in the regulation of the Senate that the budgeting process must be done this way. If we do it, the House of Representatives may likely follow the same pattern. So, it is a good idea that we should have a budget schedule, in which we will have the date for the President to bring the budget, and the date the committees should finish their works, and that the Appropriation Committee should bring details on a particular date, and then bring it back for the Senate to approve on a certain date.
You are calling for more funding for the committees, but Nigerians think National Assembly has got more than enough funds to perform better
I can understand the disagreement by Nigerians on the expenses of the National Assembly because this is an area that has been lagging behind in terms of public knowledge. Look at all those years that the military took over, there was no National Assembly, the only thing they were seeing was only the executive and the judiciary. But let me tell you, there are more useless expenditures in the executive side than in the National Assembly, but because it looks like we are much younger or less sustainable partners, because of military incursions, they misunderstand the important role of the parliament. If you go to the Senate of the United States, I mean, it is such an awesome, powerful institution, because they have built it for years. And they have every needed facility to help them work effectively; they have their own full budget office, they can hire professionals to do all their investigations, but here, it is different. People argue why senators should have cars, but they forget that even the local government chairmen, state assembly lawmakers, commissioners, even ministers that we confirm will end up having two, three cars, and then you are telling us that the National Assembly should not have cars. Reduce the cars, let them be Peugeot cars for everybody, President is there, Vice President is there, Chief Justice is there, Senate President, Speakers, Governors, all of them should be there, but you cannot isolate an institution which is very vital, because if there is no National Assembly, there is no democracy. It is the main symbol of democracy, and so you are going to make it work. It is not because I am involved, of course, I will be out someday, but I will like to leave an institution that is fully built not half built so that we can better work for Nigerians and save money for Nigerians, and that is the importance of our oversight functions.
