The Nation Newspaper

Tag: NASS

  • NASS Clinic

    • A shameful picture of dysfunction

    In October, the First Lady chastised the management of Aso Rock Clinic for not having syringes and other basic medical equipment and medications for even emergency treatment at the clinic.  In response, the House of Representatives quickly resolved to investigate the “deplorable condition” of the clinic and its failure to deliver services for which it was being funded.

    But the National Assembly (NASS) turns out to have been worrying about the mote in the eye of others while ignoring the beam in its own eye: gross lack of basic medical supplies at the NASS Clinic that even induces rationing of medical treatment.

    A clinic that is to provide health care for over 500 lawmakers and many more legislative aides and workers is depicted by insiders as not having enough doctors, basic equipment, and basic medications, apart from paracetamol. The situation is bad enough that medical supplies are rationed and staffers needing treatment are turned back, unless they are known to have irresistible men and women of power behind them. Even those who get treated are directed to buy their medications outside the clinic.

    The light-mindedness towards efficient health care in NASS Clinic seems to reflect similar attitudes of leaders to health care in general: Aso Rock Clinic runs largely on paracetamol; the National Assembly clinic is worse; most government hospitals in the country lack the equipment and supplies needed to treat patients; and primary health centres hardly function in most of the country’s 774 local governments.

    It is ironical that the National Assembly, already famous or notorious for being the most highly remunerated in the world, is nonchalant about the health of lawmakers and their staff. But the speed with which lawmakers and even members of the executive resort to medical tourism suggests rising institutional cynicism about the local health industry. There is no other way to explain why lawmakers who do so much to protect outlandish benefits for themselves would readily lose interest in maintaining the clinic that protects their health.

    We consider the situation of the NASS Clinic, like that of Aso Rock about which the First Lady raised the alarm barely three months ago, an evidence of sheer irresponsibility and a flagrant waste of the nation’s resources poured into providing such important public service. It is shameful that the two special clinics created to manage the health of government leaders are unable to provide the service for which they have been created.

    Similar clinics are available in other countries to take care of the health needs of government leaders and as a service strategic to national security. For example, the Office of the Attending Physician, United States’ counterpart of NASS Clinic, has a full complement of staff and adequate facilities to attend to staff of the Congress and the judiciary, as well as to visitors and tourists to Congress in case of emergency.

    If the government is not capable of running one special clinic properly, why should it have two separate clinics in the same vicinity? The principle of separation of powers does not require that the executive, legislature, and the judiciary in the same city run separate clinics. Having one well-staffed and equipped clinic to serve staff of the three branches of government in Abuja is more cost-effective than unnecessary duplication that produces nothing but inefficiency and inertia.

    Believing that the combined staff of the presidency, legislature, and the judiciary cannot be more than the population of an average local government, we call for proper rationalising or streamlining of health care for the presidency, legislature, and the judiciary. There seems to be no better time to do this than now when the economy is under severe stress.

  • Abandoned projects: NASS orders prosecution of defaulting contractors

    Irked by the rising incidence of abandoned projects dotting major cities across the country, the National Assembly has set machinery in motion to arrest and prosecute erring contractors.

    Giving this hint was Hon. Mohammed Umaru Bago, Chairman, House Committee on Maritime Safety, Education and Administration. He spoke in Uyo, Akwa Ibom state capital, when he paid a courtesy call at the headquarters of Maritime Academy of Nigeria (MAN), Oron, at the weekend.

    According to him, the only way to curb the excesses of some of the unscrupulous contractors is to call for their immediate arrest and prosecution so as to serve as a deterrent to others.

    While congratulating the Rector, Commodore Emmanuel Effedua Duja (rtd) on his appointment by President Muhammadu Buhari, the lawmaker expressed his displeasure at the continued slow pace of development at the institution. He therefore charged the Rector to hit the ground running and turn around the fortunes of the school to enable it compete favourably like its peers within and outside Africa.

    Bago who expressed confidence in the Rector’s ability as an administrator and disciplined military officer, sterling qualities, which he stressed recommended the latter for the present job, urged him to put his experience into judicious use for the benefit of the institution.

    “We ready to support you, guide you and provide required leadership. We shall not interfere as long as you carry out your duties within the ambit of the law. I assure you that we shall stand by you to resist anybody or group of persons who may try to disturb you in any way,” Hon Bago said.

    While tasking the Rector to ensure that contracts awarded by previous management are cleared and paid for before awarding new ones, the Committee boss however warned that any job not executed to specifications must be revoked and such contractor prosecuted.

    The Committee also directed that all abandoned projects, especially buildings be subjected to integrity test to ascertain whether such buildings should be pulled down for safety reasons or properly re-enforced and made secured for workers to occupy as offices, hostels, classrooms or any other use which the MAN management may want to.

    While stressing the need for accountability, the Committee members called for the arrest and prosecution of anyone connected with alleged missing N26m from fees paid by Cadets just as they called for proper audit to find out the true position.

    “It is bad to owe people who have done their jobs but it is worse to collect money and not carry out what money was collected for. All run away contractor should immediately return to site and complete their jobs or be prepared to face dire consequences.”

    Responding, MAN boss, Commodore Emmanuel Effedua Duja (rtd), called on the Committee to provide the required legislative backing, improved funding and the elimination of barriers to enable the Academy compete with its peers in the rest of the world.

  • Not Too Young To Run Bill, NASS’ golden gift

    Sir: It was very welcome news during the course of the year when both houses of the National Assembly passed the constitutional amendment bill colloquially referred to as the ‘Not Too Young to Run Bill’.

    The Not Too Young to Run bill reduces the age of eligibility for legislative and executive offices, as currently prescribed by the constitution. The bill still needs to be ratified by at least 24 state Houses of Assembly and assented to by the President to become law, but it is nonetheless an important step in widening the pool from which we select our leaders and representatives, at least theoretically speaking.

    Theoretically, this is because age is just one of the many subsets in the Venn diagram of political selection in Nigeria. The theory of it all is why many watchers were surprised that the bill did not die on the floor of either house. A substantial part of the advocacy for the bill focused on the unsatisfactoriness of the choices available to the electorate during the election season. Some have described the current order as “sexagenarians who only seem focused on perpetuating 19th-century leadership in a 21st-century world”.

    Beyond the nominal trappings of sloganeering – electricity, good roads, potable water, basic education and healthcare – which have defined our elections in the last three decades, Nigeria needs leaders who can wrap their heads around new world issues – artificial intelligence, cryptocurrencies, the internet and so on.

    There is an imperative to usher in a new and virile breed that are competent in speaking to concepts that revolve around innovation, coordination, green, openness and sharing  as they impact Nigeria and the wider world in the coming years. To attempt to bridge this massive gap and turn ourselves into a competitive economy requires a lot more vision and strategic thinking than our beret and glove wearing administrators have demonstrated over time. This is where my generation has so much to offer and I do honestly think that we can do much better.

    In all of this, we are not too idealistic. We realise, as has been famously said, that power is never served a la carte. And there are indeed a few governors and senators in their forties that perhaps lend themselves to the argument that youth can lead just as poorly as age – the Wisdom of Solomon, the Age of Methuselah, Strength of Samson having nothing to do with each other and all that. Clearly, there are many other factors such as intellectual capacity, wealth, zoning and so on that prevent the pool of contestants from being much richer than it currently is.

    This is why it is imperative that once the constitution has officially been amended to allow younger people to run for office, advocacy must resume immediately to push new bills. We need new bills such as the Not Too Poor to Run and Not Too Smart to Run bills. The National Assembly can surely open more doors and break more glass ceilings in a bid to fast-track Nigeria’s race to the top while leveraging her greatest assets, its huge youth demography.

    To be less facetious, one must commend the Senate on this issue, for helping to move the needle to ensure that Nigerian youth have a foot in the door to being the leaders of today and tomorrow.

     

    • Folakunle Adeagbo,

    Lagos.

     

  • Our Girls; NASS: Budget by 1-1-2018 – no tolls

    Our Girls; NASS: Budget by 1-1-2018 – no tolls

    Our girls are still missing since April 15, 2014. Pray.

    Today we talk Ejo Eko foreign reserves up, budget and tolls no thank you

    Ejo eko, the Lagos snake, a python-the hundreds of lorries parked from Surulere to Apapa- strangling the life and economy of Lagos is a dangerous disgrace as highlighted by Channels TV with bridges likely to be compromised from vehicular deadweight.

    Happily the foreign reserves have risen to above $38,000,000,000 and should top $40 by January making predictions of $55-60,000,000,000 by end 2018, realistic and the naira will rise again.

    National Assembly (NASS) has less than three weeks, 18 days, to the Nigerian people’s deadline for budget passage by NASS ‘1-1-2018’. Communicate with NASS politicians to encourage, force, empower, and energise them to stick to the people and not the politicians’ agenda. I make this ‘Legitimate Demand’, indeed a ‘Citizens’ Command’, on behalf of citizens to NASS that it sleeps not, breaks not, holidays not, laughs not, indeed eats luxuriously not, and drinks nothing but water until the passage of the 2018 Budget by 1-1-2018.

    Even the divorce settlement of BREXIT forced bothUK and EU politicians to burn the midnight light, never generator, haha, to achieve a breakthrough. NASS should learn to do the right thing, first with budget and then with the coming elections, from such real foreign democracies. Nigerians risk life and limb to benefit from other people’s investment in their own countries while back home their families wallow in darkness, self-pity and hopelessness. The budget approval and the coming election offer yet another opportunity to conduct the deadly game of politics quickly in the interest of the downtrodden citizenry. They cry inside for a better ‘Beloved Country’, a cry from Africa for many different political reasons, ever since Alan Paton published Cry, my Beloved Country way back in 1948. Politicians have opportunity to reconstruct to get real politics started but as long as the political godfathers and strongmen and few women are the ones who serially and chronically ruined Nigeria in the past 50 years, what hope have we for a new beginning?

    NASS is the face of Nigerian politics, in lifestyle, utterances, actions, empathy or pack of same and morality. From assessment of the various financial and other scandals which have plagued it and disappeared under the voluminous carpet, NASS is an easily assessable quality check on the Nigerian politics measured against other political institutions and the state of the nation and the citizens’ expectations or lack of accomplishment of those expectations. Let the NASS be fully aware of the huge weight of public opinion already against it for its profligacy, mega-money status and apparent insensitivity to the comparative squalor of the citizenry when compared to the extractive political salary legally-illegally extracted from the same federal government budget and purse!! Politics is indeed an extractive industry. NASS must do the needful to ensure that it passes the budget to help save its troubled reputation.

    Any NASS member should think again if he or she thinks his or her political posturing points ‘shown on NTA’ are more important than the survival reasons why hundreds of thousands of young Nigerians set out as part of the ‘migrant crisis’ to risk their lives and lived ones to cross the Sahara and Mediterranean for a ‘better life abroad’ where they expect what they do not have at home. Running water, constant electric power supply, pothole-free roads, mass transit, sound education, good health and housing are denied human rights of citizens in Nigeria. For years this column has warned of the growing ‘Migrants Crisis’ and the perils of this new 21st Century slavery generation. A number of years ago, CNN or BBC carried several investigative reporter documentaries by an excellent West African reporter whose name escapes me. He explored migration, slavery and travel. Today the matter is even more in the open than then. But is the more recent CNN exposure, again under CNN’s Freedom Project, supported by a social media explosion, helping to curb the practice that led to the migration crisis? Probably of little effect because the local media does not relay such documentaries to common people likely to flee.

    I do not like every budget item especially selling assets as some buyers may have stolen money in the past and want to launder it –a sort of double stealing. Even tolls have problems. We are not good road managers, causing suffering for citizens unnecessarily! All current tolls are inadequate, undermanned, poorly or mismanaged toll roads, totally underperforming tollgates as exemplified by the Lagos Oniru and the New Lekki Bridge often a nightmare for traffic movement. Just look at the hours added to Lekki travel by the toll bridges. Yes, they make billions for their owners and government but in an archaic manner. Will the tremendous traffic jams in Lagos with stand-still traffic become nationwide when federal government re-introduces toll bridges? Far better to increase the vehicle and driving licence fees by say N5,000 each and make electronic pre-paid tickets cheaper than tickets bought at the toll gate. Toll operators care nothing for reorganising the disorganised crazy 20 lanes into six orderly queues 50 metres to the toll points merely by stretching out their plastic barriers 50 meters out. Simple queue management!

     

    • NB: Nigerians uncover ‘I LOVE NIGERIA’ KNOWLEDGEABLE CANDIDATES for 2019 -SDG 16
  • Our Girls; NASS: Budget by 1-1-2018 our human right

    Our Girls; NASS: Budget by 1-1-2018 our human right

    Our girls are still missing since April 15, 2014. Pray.

    National Assembly ( NASS ) has less than four weeks, 25 days, to the Nigerian People’s Deadline For Budget Passage by NASS ‘1-1-2018’. NASS should not say ‘no’ for whatever reason. Everything is possible in politics- even rarely correct decision making!! Was it not NASS which passed, was it, 67 bills in one day?  It is to get results like this that we are being forced to pay NASS between N125 and 150,000,000,000 – to do our will, not its will. In the opinion of many, NASS is truly an unproductive highly extractive industry for little tangible returns. It is payback time. The budget is not a matter of life or death. It is only a matter of differing opinions on facts, fiction and figure. NASS should do our will to see the budget passed by 1-1-2018, warts, mistakes, differing estimates of oil income, differing guestimates of oil prices and all differences are speculative. The accolade ‘The first NASS to pass a budget by 1-1,’ will be a far greater crown than a litany of quibbling questions and blowing hot and cold with Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs). Judging from all the multibillion ‘corruption-gates’ in and out of NASS, NASS has no leg to stand on by delaying the budget.

    Note that every million naira stolen results in X number of deaths from inability to afford medical treatment for family and poor diet and impoverishment from absent jobs making the thieves actual murderers by their actions. Political science and social science departments and must research this as stealing billions makes the thieves mass-murderers.

    Let NASS pass the budget by 1-1-2018 for our children. We all know that a lecturer can fail even a professor in any examination if she wants to or if the price is right. So also with NASS which could delay or fail the budget forever on genuine and spiteful technicalities. It pays many to see this government fail just before the elections, as they again jump ship. Nigerians are on to their game, inflicting shame on Nigeria while our youth suffer in pain and are sold into Libyan slavery and used as bush meat for body parts. We the voting public all see through this filibustering/delaying shameful smokescreen. Such grandstanding and time-wasting politics may be okay for developed countries which deliver every comfort like power, water and sanitation, no matter which political party is in power.

    Our situation is shamefully different and cannot afford such political tactics. However it is such ill-conceived activities which fuelled the mass migrants’ movement. Why did these same MDAs have plain sailing since 1999 but are suddenly found wanting! Nigerians need their budget now for the year Jan-Dec. Should we not prepare a ‘Thank you NASS’ Card as NASS gives Nigeria this Christmas and New Year Present, although NASS would merely be doing its job.

    The Nigerian outcry from multimillionaire politicians about the ‘Migrants’ Misery Trail’ through the Sahara and across the Mediterranean Sea to drown in the sands or the sea off Lampedusa amounts to crocodile tears. The migrants and many resident Nigerians lament the needless absent infrastructure across Africa and particularly in our country where common electric power is ‘multi-billion naira corruption-ridden nuclear physics’ –killing citizens -murder. Yet China, the new big cheese worldwide, adds 30,000+Mw, to their grid annually even as more people in authority in Nigeria are discovered with more billions of our commonwealth. Of course we should have 150,000Mw by now and all heads of state should be ashamed and stop talking. They dropped Nigeria into this bucket of powerlessness.

    I have a simple yardstick for Nigeria’s development that affects every one of our citizens -power. That test is positive in every other country in war-torn Africa demonstrating Nigerian leaders’ collective colossal ineptitude. The test is the ‘One Year No Blackout Test’ – if I can turn on a switch with uninterrupted power every time for a year. Only then will I know that Nigeria is developing to the barest minimum expected by those youth forced to search for ‘the human right to 24 hour power’ by fleeing our country and risking life and limb and crazy organ donor doctors.

    Do you know what it means to be held down, perhaps put to sleep, and have a kidney or two and a cornea or two and even a heart removed just because your country’s leaders have stolen the money, murdering jobs, roads, health, and pensions, making life unliveable and a death sentence at home or abroad? And then the murderers blame youth for migrating to add insult to operation injury. Nigerian politicians have failed so many millions and should do more than apologise.

    Let nobody tell you that you have failed Nigeria if you did not steal – murder, or misguide, or cheat Nigerians and Nigeria. You are not responsible for Nigeria’s failures unless you took funds or made selfish decisions, denied others their rights to education, health and pensions and good elections by you actions and mis-actions. It is not about the electorate getting what it deserves because you see how much elections misspend with the odds stacked against honest candidates.

     

    • NB: Nigerians uncover ‘I LOVE NIGERIA’ KNOWLEDGEABLE CANDIDATES for 2019 -SDG 16

  • Coalition commends NASS on consumer protection bill

    Director, Membership Services Nigeria Employers Consultative Association [NECA], Timothy Olawale, has commended the leadership of the national assembly on the passage into law, the federal competition and consumer protection bill.

    Olawale enthused that “Indeed, this act marks the beginning of a new era in the business environment in Nigeria.

    “When signed by the president and implemented, the law would address the issue of anti-competitive and abusive market practices such as price fixing, excessive pricing, abuse of dominant position, etcetera as well as instil sound business culture in Nigeria.  The law will impact on the operations of MSMEs by opening access to markets and reducing the cost of inputs.”

    Olawale in a media statement stated further, “It will also cater for the interest of consumers in two broad ways. Firstly, by promoting competition among business operators, consumers are bound to enjoy lower prices and high quality and variety of goods and services. Secondly, a part of the law is dedicated to protecting the rights of the consumer, such as the right to information, safety, choice, redress, etc. The law will put in place an improved framework for consumer protection. The Commission to be established under it will take over the functions of the Consumer Protection Council, which will cease to exist.”

    Expressing his thanks, Olawale said, “We want to particularly thank the President of the Senate, Dr Abubakar Bukola Saraki, and the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Dr Yakubu Dogara, for their personal efforts towards the eventual passage of this Bill.”

  • NASS attack

    There is an awkward Igbo saying that suggests that the breadfruit starts off the size a baby’s head and when it ripens and is fully formed, it is the head of an adult. Of course that comes across quite obvious enough but the import of it is germane to the matter at hand today.

    The lesson from this seeming trite maxim is that trouble often starts in small, innocuous packages and when fully formed turns into apocalyptic firecrackers that leave dark imprints on unlikeliest places. Bottom line: elders of yore admonish that we nip palavers in the bud as much as possible.

    And this is what Hardball brings to the front burner following the fatal fracas in Lafiagi, headquarters of Edu Local Government Area, Kwara State, last week. Here is the gist of the story: Last Friday’s evening, youths of Lafiagi were reported to have barricaded the entrance to the town in order to bar their senator, Mohammed Sha’aba Lafiagi from entering the town.

    Note that this personage is so huge he bears the name of the town – Lafiagi. He’s been permanent fixture of sort in Kwara affairs in the past two decades or so: a former governor of the state and currently representing Kwara North in the Senate. It must also be pointed out that he is ranking Senator of huge influence in the upper chamber of the National Assembly (NASS).

    With such a towering profile why would irate youths (as some news outlets described them) think up such affront not to say execute it? According to report, the road approaching the town was in the most derelict of states for quite some time. Neither the state government nor their NASS representatives would lift a finger

    The youths reportedly raised funds through self-help to fix a particular culvert to return the road to motorability. It was this spot that the youth vowed the Senator would not ply. Thoroughly affronted, loathing the disgrace of returning to Abuja that memorable late evening, the big man had called for security reinforcement. In the ensuing fracas three youths had died.

    In retaliation, the Senator’s country home was torched.

    There has been a recent history of mob attacks of NASS members, especially in the north but never had there been any case of death. Now the incident in kwara has raised the ante… it’s beginning to get bloody; the frustration of the people is beginning to well up and the dam of patience seems about to break.

    Surely, something is fundamentally and indeed criminally wrong with the current set up. A few blokes are secretly carting away the national treasury in the midst of mass misery. If NASS does not nobly enact change, change may be forced upon NASS… and it could be catastrophic!

     

  • UPP urges NASS to pass law to enable electronic voting

    The national leadership of the United Progressive Party (UPP) has urged the National Assembly to pass the necessary law to permit full usage of the Electronic Voting System (EVS).

    The process, UPP said, would further ensure a free and fair 2019 general elections.

    This is part of the resolutions reached by the National Working Committee (NWC) of the party in Abuja, as it reviewed the recently-concluded Anambra Governorship election held on November 18.

    UPP NWC also resolved to alert the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), the National Assembly, the Presidency and the general public on the: “unsavoury dimension our democracy has assumed which if not nipped in the bud shall give a completely new definition to democracy as it is practised in Nigeria.”

    National Chairman of the party, Chief Chekwas Okorie, at a news conference after the NWC meeting, said the expected legislation on EVS should empower INEC to prosecute offenders of election funding provisions adding that: “there should be strict laws prohibiting any person from carrying a certain amount of money within the vicinity of a Polling Unit.”

    He said: “UPP is disappointed that most observers that commented on the Anambra Governorship election have tended to play down on the danger posed to our nascent democracy by the monetisation and commercialisation of the election. What happened in the full glare of the general public with some of the drama already streaming in the social media is that political parties set up shops at virtually all the Polling Units to bid for and buy votes. The difference in votes won by these three parties I have mentioned is only in their individual capacity to out-bid one another at different places. In such bazaar the highest bidder always wins.

    “It is difficult to blame a poor voter who has already been rendered vulnerable by a non performing government to resist the lucre of N20,000, N10,000, N5,000 as the case may be for casting his or her vote in a manner required of him or her to earn such windfall. It is important to put in perspective that most of these voters trekked to the Polling Units practically with no money in their pockets because of their unfortunate but avoidable indigence. Presenting such a person with the amounts just mentioned above is rather too tempting to be resisted.

    “The unfortunate aspect of the perfidy in the Anambra Governorship election is that this show of shame took place in the full glare of all the security agencies that covered the election. The accredited Observers and Journalists witnessed the malfeasance and made their findings public.

    “If this dangerous dimension to winning election is allowed to spread across the country then our democracy is doomed. The much expected 2019 general election will be a mere charade. The implication of this unfortunate development is that politicians will consider it wasteful and unnecessary to promote their parties manifestoes and canvass their blueprints for governance during campaigns in order to sell their party and candidature to the electorate. Politicians will consider that all that they have to do is to amass wealth, set up shops at Polling Booths, out-bid their rivals and wait to be congratulated and celebrated for a landslide victory. If this is allowed to gain root, then criminals, money launderers, treasury looters and their likes will take over the political space, occupy juicy elective and appointive offices in Nigeria from the next democratic encounter in 2019. In that way, democracy in Nigeria will definitely assume a new and ridiculous definition. Nigeria will be ruined.

    “We advise as follows: The National Assembly should without further delay and in the interest of our democratic process, pass the necessary laws to usher in full Electronic Voting System (EVS).

    “What we have done here as a responsible and credible Opposition Party is to share our thoughts on this election with the public and we hope that INEC, the National Assembly, the Presidency, Public Affairs Commentators, Pro-Democracy Organisations and Donor Agencies should intervene in their various capacities to save our democracy from going to the dogs.”

     

  • NASS attack

    There is an awkward Igbo saying that suggests that the breadfruit starts off the size of a baby’s head and when it ripens and is fully formed, it is the head of an adult. Of course that comes across quite obvious enough but the import of it is germane to the matter at hand today.

    The lesson from this seeming trite maxim is that trouble often starts in small, innocuous packages and when fully formed turns into apocalyptic firecrackers that leave dark imprints on unlikeliest places. Bottom line: elders of yore admonish that we nip palavers in the bud as much as possible.

    And this is what Hardball brings to the front burner following the fatal fracas in Lafiagi, headquarters of Edu Local Government Area, Kwara State, last week. Here is the gist of the story: Last Friday’s evening, youths of Lafiagi were reported to have barricaded the entrance to the town to bar their senator, Mohammed Sha’aba Lafiagi, from entering the town.

    Note that this personage is so huge he bears the name of the town – Lafiagi. He’s been a permanent fixture of sort in Kwara affairs in the past two decades or so: a former governor of the state and currently representing Kwara North in the Senate. It must also be pointed out that he is ranking Senator of huge influence in the upper chamber of the National Assembly (NASS).

    With such a towering profile, why would irate youths (as some news outlets described them) think up such affront not to say execute it? According to report, the road approaching the town was in the most derelict of states for quite some time. Neither the state government nor their NASS representatives would lift a finger

    The youths reportedly raised funds through self-help to fix a particular culvert to return the road to motorability. It was this spot that the youth vowed the Senator would not ply. Thoroughly affronted, loathing the disgrace of returning to Abuja that memorable late evening, the big man had called for security reinforcement. In the ensuing fracas three youths had died.

    In retaliation, the Senator’s country home was torched.

    There has been a recent history of mob attacks of NASS members, especially in the North but never had there been any case of death. Now the incident in Kwara has raised the ante… it’s beginning to get bloody; the frustration of the people is beginning to well up and the dam of patience seems about to break.

    Surely, something is fundamentally and indeed criminally wrong with the current set-up. A few blokes are secretly carting away the national treasury in the midst of mass misery. If NASS does not nobly enact change, change may be forced upon NASS… and it could be catastrophic!

     

  • Our Girls; NASS: Budget by 1/1/2018 pls

    Our girls are still missing since April 15, 2014, contravening UN-SDGs Sustainable Development Goals 4, 5 and 16 the yardsticks for development set by the United Nations. Work for their release. Please access #FreedomForGirls film on Youtube by ‘Beyonce and 100 girls’ and show As Many Girls As Possible – AMGAP – and at home, school and work. Please spread the film word to achieve SDG 5-Gender Equality. No girl should not see this Youtube download.

    Belgian judge has 24 hours to determine bail for the Catalan leadership. In Nigeria it can take 24 days for the same bail determination. Is it our judges, courts, counsel or awaiting trial persons obstructing a similarly swift progression of the law in Nigeria?

    Let no politician sitting so arrogantly comfortable in National Assembly (NASS) get more comfortable because their red seats should be on fire with the budget 2018. Let not one of them be in any doubt about the immediate priority for Nigeria and all Nigerians for speedy budget passage by December 31 even if it means postponing their numerous breaks and holidays.

    So far some of them have screwed up the reason for their senator-ship or representation of their people in NASS. The latter is a constitutional necessity and Presidential right – finito! The APC government peppered, many say polluted, with ‘double degree holders’ –‘PDP, APC’ who soon may get another one making them Triple degree holders PDP, APC, PDP. They are now conveniently APC/ ex-PDP mostly ‘on-sabbatical’ in APC or ‘on survival’ for financial reasons in APC. Nigerians are allowed to suspect from what has happened so far that they are ‘on-sabotage’ masquerading as APC, in a malignant mis-marriage of very strange bedfellows doing Nigeria no democratic good. Nigerians are hoping to see a new constructive not destructive seriousness in parliamentary budgetary process in line with an APC desirous of moving this country forward. The parliament needs to set its democracy demons aside and become the first NASS/ Senate to meet the internationally logical democratic deadline of December 31 for budget passage.

    Parliament need to sign up to the APC government and get on board the ‘Ease of Doing Business’ policy , in this case ‘Ease of Doing Budget Passage Business’ in Nigeria – an Oath-Related Responsibility of lawmakers who are supposed to be facilitators with ‘reasonable modifications’ not ‘Spoilers with powers to delay, rewrite and completely redirect the budget’. They are not ‘government’, but lawmakers! This budget could become a landmark, a trail-blazer for future NASS/ senates by laying precedent. The APC/ ex-PDP on sabbatical/on-sabotage should not fall foul of, or be seen to collude with those who would maliciously delay the budget beyond December 31. Why? Probably to spite Fellow Nigerians, this government and Buhari in particular. Perhaps also as punishment for cutting off the gravy train that bill-passing is rumoured to have been in the past by providing for them Ghana Must Go Bullion Bags as ‘Bribes-for –Bills’ while perhaps quibbling over funds for hospitals and schools. In many citizens’ eyes and hearts, the NASS lowered itself to disgrace by vainglorious grandstanding and manipulating the APC’s budget in 2017, by insertion of Constituency Projects, removing funds from the Lagos Ibadan Expressway the central transport artery feeding all Nigerians added to their historically immoral salary structure and mostly nauseating performance on nightly TV. This was indeed a Pyrrhic victory for NASS as whatever it gained in the budget was lost in the court of public opinion. But perhaps NASS does not care much for citizens’ collective opinions. Can it redeem itself with this 2018 budget process? No one expects NASS to be a rubber stamp but it has no right to be a brick wall.

    What a glory for this NASS/Senate if it achieves timely passage by December 31 or earlier – quite an ordinary feat worldwide! In Nigeria we must make mountains out of mole hills and bridges out of flyovers. It would be political suicide of election-losing proportions for any NASS member to stop the wheel of timely passage of the budget, especially for perceived selfish petty political gain like constituency projects. And spoiling the APC record. Nigerians must wait for such failed politicians at the election and fail them too! The 150m odd citizens would happily applaud the NASS/Senate if they complied with common sense and the dictate of accountancy, audit, logic and even democratic norms worldwide, not dividends of democracy. All eyes and ears should be tuned to NASS/ Senate to see if they have the political integrity, intellect and cranial capacity to divert their personal democratic disaster and to understand that budget approval time, the ease of ‘Doing Budget Business’ is not the time to hold Nigeria to ransom by fighting, a stalemate or a standstill. Any delay beyond December 31 will diminish and disgrace the NASS/ Senate in the eyes of the citizens and be an insulting denial of the rights of citizens to rapid development. NASS is sitting an exam during this budget session and we the examiners will follow their progress in the media daily and mark their performance and reward them appropriately at the next election. Contact your NASS members now and warn about this budget issue. NASS is not a deity or divine, just s-elected people in a room with a responsibility they often fail to deliver!

    NB: Nigerians uncover ‘I LOVE NIGERIA’ KNOWLEDGEABLE CANDIDATES for 2019 -SDG 16.