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Tag: NASS

  • NASS legislative short-change

    NASS legislative short-change

    It was only time for the burble to burst. It had lingered on unabated since the provision was made in the statute books for members of the National Assembly to have in its employ, legislative aides, whose experience, maturity and intellectual background were meant to add value to their principals – Honorable Members and Distinguished Senators, in  fashioning good laws for the citizenry.

     Law making is expected to be a very consuming parliamentary function, researching, articulating and churning out motions and bills to be presented on the floors of both chambers. For smooth legislating therefore, the legislative aides are veritable machinery and are sine qua non to attaining this lofty and noble objective. They are the engine room, which should tinker and chisel out from the furnace, several laws and positions their principals should adopt on any issue, local, national and international.

     The recent upheaval at the National Assembly of unpaid severance, wages, allowances and backlog of salaries, is only but a tip of the iceberg. It was just a time bomb waiting to be detonated. Of course, the aides could not have gotten a very opportune time than now with a President Muhammadu Buhari, whose template is to jail the looters and stop the hydra-headed corrupt practices, which had unfortunately become the norm in a nation endowed with numerous human and natural resources.

     The legislative aides have always remained the butt of both their immediate principals and the management of the National Assembly. In the past, legislators simply dipped their hands in their pockets to pay their aides. The pay then at the end of the month was scandalous. All it says, if it suits one, then stay, otherwise bolt away.

     Gladly the National Assembly Service Commission came on board and the aides are now being recruited by the commission and placed on salary scales even at ridiculous wage brackets with a caveat that the appointment is at the pleasure of the legislator. It does not bother the commission that the aides come from very rich professional backgrounds and are supposedly on political appointments and as such, sacrilegious salaries of civil servants should not have been the lot of the aides. It would have made more sense to treat the aides as politicians and up their pay packets just as the wages and allowances of their principals, the legislators.

     Depending on the side of bed, the legislator wakes up from, he or she can terminate the appointment without raising an eyebrow. So, the hordes of legislative aides are like slaves, no job security, poor remuneration, no dignity either from the principal one works for or even the National Assembly Service Commission or even the National Assembly management proper that runs the entire ‘octopus’ of the Assembly.

     Then there is the seen or unseen clause that says unless an aide stays at least for upward of two years with his or her principal, that aide is not qualified for the severance, which is stipulated by the Revenue Mobilization, Allocation and Fiscal Commission, for aides at the end of their four year service. So, the aides continue to have butterflies in the stomach, praying and looking forward in anxiety to scale that hurdle. Indeed, the lawmakers in both chambers throw away their aides and change them as one changes under pants, without batting an eyelid.

     Having served in the 7th National Assembly, with my principal unable to make it back to the Assembly, one had made up his mind just before that edition wound up, that enough of all the shenanigan. A brilliant friend of mine, a Veterinary Doctor working for a popular Kaduna State legislator, was thrown out before completing the mandatory two years for just flimsy reasons of the legislator unable to install a councillor at the ward of the aide, a fault that was not his because the legislator insisted in fielding an unpopular candidate after repeated warnings by the aide that the candidate was not the people’s choice.

     It is a welcome development that the aides are now agitating for their rights and one is shocked to learn that the National Assembly management would be proffering unacceptable reasons for the delay in the payment of our legitimate dues-severance, duty travel allowances (DTA) and back log of salaries for those who at present have been employed and have been with their principals since June 6, 2015.

     As a matter of fact, the duty travel allowance ought to have been paid in April this year, since it is a quarterly allotment. The money, running to over N200 million as payment of DTA for legislative aides at the House of Representatives and Senate, was already in the coffers of the Assembly. Our colleagues at the 6th Assembly got theirs before that session ended, so the cock and bull story should be for the marines. The allegation is rife that the management had planned to pocket that huge sum in its usually corrupt stance, realising that for the first time, a large number of aides were not returning following the near clean sweep of former legislators who lost both primaries of their parties and the general elections.

     It is now like an albatross sticking out on the necks of those alleged fraudulent ones in the management and that is why there is a renewed protest that the anti-graft agencies must step in to get to the root of all the vices taking place in the National Assembly. The issue of severance should also be investigated. How come Senators and Members of House of Representatives have all been paid their severance payments? My principal who did not return to the House had since smiled to the bank. Where did the large sums of payment emanate from? Who is allegedly holding back those of the aides? Why the discrimination?

     Some legislative aides who served in the 6th Assembly had gone to court over their severance pay which they felt had been tampered with.  Since it is subjudice; we await the final conclusion of that historic case.

     As one writes, the legislators have been paid their salaries since June, including other allowances. My colleagues who are lucky to still be aides, alleged that because they were agitating, the management was intimidating the aides that the practice of paying arrears of salaries to aides, might be tinkered to cover payments based on the day and date written on the appointment papers.

      Of course this is callous, vicious and another methodology for the management to steal as usual from the aides. It should indeed not be contemplated because the aides have resumed since June with their principals and cannot be victims of the bottlenecks of bureaucracy between the National Assembly Service Commission and the National Assembly management. In 2011, when the 7th Assembly was inaugurated, most legislative aides got their salaries in November and were duly paid their arrears up to date when the payments were made.

     One nauseating criminal tendency of the management is to short-change the aides on the issue of training and seminars. Going by the laid down plans with monies budgeted and collected, each aide was entitled not a privilege to attend such training every three months or quarterly as the case may be. What the management does is to turn a blind eye, allow the quarter to elapse and merge the workshop, and as usual pay for only one training quarter exercise. No one dare to question the colossus. Can the management continue to get away with this oddity?

     In the past too, the management paid pittance. After a very severe protest, the take home allowance was upped a little and now the training allowances are paid through the bank. Most times, aides wait on end for the allowance; most times a month after to be paid and to some of the aides, it is a bad dream, their accounts are never credited, terrible lopsided arrangement only pleasing to those allegedly profiting from the racket.

     The painful aspect is that by the training programme, aides who serve at the constituency offices of their principals are supposed to participate and when they come from far flung places, not a kobo is given to cover their transport or even accommodation. Some aides choose to stay away because the pittance at the end of the day cannot cover their transport expenses to and fro.

     My experience at the Assembly as an aide would make a book just space cannot permit. Only very few legislators care a two pence about their aides.  They cart away millions when they know their aides have not been paid a dime. To the legislators, they have done the aides the biggest favor by giving them employments and such the aides were no longer their burden and should wait until Adam drops.

     Unless the anti-graft agencies beam their searchlight on the rot in the system of the National Assembly, the alleged corruption there cannot abate. To my erstwhile colleagues, one should say bravo. After all, what is wrong in paying the laborer his wage!’ Who says some officials would now not be sweating in their pants as the Czar of anti corruption, President Muhammadu Buhari sends coal fire from Aso Rock.

    –Pategi, wrote in from Minna

  • Wetin dem dey do for this NASS sef?

    A whopping N1.15 trillion spent in 10 years! Well, to what extent can an average citizen describe the benefits (?) gotten from the National Assembly’s largely recurrent N1. 15 trillion expenditure over a period of ten years? If you ask me, I will tell you with knucklehead accuracy that it is just a gathering of feisty investors rapaciously reaping the gains of their forays into Nigeria’s lucrative political system. Or how else does one describe a legislature that annually draws more than three per cent humongous cash from the national budget with little or no value added to the policy and the polity? For example, the Senator Bukola Saraki-led Senate and Hon. Yakubu Dogara’s House of Representatives had merely spent 15 working days, mostly heckling one another over leadership positions before they packed bags and baggage to embark on a wasteful hiatus, officially tagged vacation that is yet to end. For me, these opportunists in starched babanrigas and well-knit suits are just having the best of their world at the expense of citizens who had high expectations for good governance and representative governance. Aside the suspenseful chicanery and pure brigandage that characterised the few days they spent sorting out leadership positions among themselves, these folks have equally collected billions of naira in salaries and perquisites without concluding anything on a single piece of legislation!

    Unfortunately, this is what passes for the serious business of law making in our clime and the perception is rife out there that the shenanigan may continue as long as pecuniary interest remains the sole propeller of an adventure into the political space. However, the Director-General of the National Institute for Legislative Studies, Dr. Ladi Hamalai, believes the negative perception is a misconception borne out of our misunderstanding of the constitutional responsibilities of the lawmakers. Hamalai, who spoke at an interactive session with the media on Tuesday in Abuja, could not understand why the efforts being made by her institute to effect a positive twist in the tale of the National Assembly as the most critical element of democratic government has failed to yield a positive result. Nigerians still hold to their belief that the more than 16 years’ journey of the new experiment at the National Assembly is more of a disappointment. She seems to wonder why the National Assembly is majorly perceived to be characterised by a corrupt and insensitive bunch of self-seeking individuals who have neither the needed discipline nor integrity to halt the growing tide of poor performance except in expeditious chasing after jumbo salaries and allowances.

    To her, there is a clear missing link between what the legislature stands for and a misconstrued understanding of its workings by the general public. For a body charged with arduous tasks, including oversight on ministries, departments and agencies; law making for good governance, amendments and readjustments of laws and representation, Hamalai lamented that: “Misperceptions and lack of proper projection of the work of the National Assembly in the public domain is a major issue. We do not believe in the institute that we should sermonise. What are the facts? Let people look at the facts and verify the facts themselves and make up their minds”.

    As a guide to making up our minds, Hamalai condemns what she perceives as the citizens’ egregious belief that Nigeria’s 109 senators and 360 House of Representatives members milk the country dry by drawing N150bn from the annual budget without bothering to tender a budgetary plan for such withdrawals. What they earn, she suggested, are way below what their counterparts elsewhere earn considering the huge expectations, including the demands placed on their lean shoulders by a beggarly constituents. Hear her: “If you look at the implication of bad press, it can be so severe on the image of the all arms of government that are supposed to be fulcrums of democracy.

    If we remove the National Assembly, there is no democracy. The people must work with the National Assembly to check the executive excesses but because of the misperceptions about the lawmakers, the public will focus on N120bn that comes to the National Assembly. They do not look at the N4trn that is remaining in the executive. What do they do with it?  Nobody is interested in that.”

    To some extent, while asserting that the National Assembly’s total budget between 2005 and 2014 represented a mere 3.23 per cent of the national budget, Hamalai ended up reflecting some of our collective concerns about our federal representatives’ jumbo collection into equally jumbo pockets. She had stated that $16,000 basic salary of the Nigeria’s parliamentarian was the lowest when compared to $174,000 in the United States; $105,998 in the United Kingdom; $56,400 in South Africa and $18,000 in Benin.

    “However, the $208,000 total allowance received by a parliamentarian in Nigeria is higher than what his colleague in South Africa, with $9,680 gets. Also, total compensation for a parliamentarian in Nigeria is the highest compared to what is paid in US; UK, South Africa, Ghana, Kenya, Uganda and Benin.

    “While the total compensation for a Nigerian parliamentarian is $224,000, $174,000 is paid in US; $66,080 in South Africa; $33,120 in Ghana and $157,080 in Kenya.” I perfectly understand the frustrations of this boss of an institute which not only draws its funding from whatever the National Assembly appropriates for itself but is also tasked with the duty of making the legislature smell like sweet roses. It is, no doubt, a daunting responsibility especially with the utterly vacuous attitudinal orientations of the present crop of lawmakers and their warped egotistical proclivities.

    Unfortunately, integrity is not something you buy at the retail store. You cannot even book for it online. Like respect, it is earned. And that is why the NILS’ team needs to buckle up. Hamalai begs the question in her subtle attempt to blame the public’s mistrust on bad press or the inability to take the executive to task on what it does with the remaining 97 per cent of the annual budget with so much hue and cry over the legislators’ salacious pay package? Does she truly want answers?

    The answer, to my mind, lies basically in the failure of the lawmakers to see beyond their conceited veil of self-aggrandisement which has resulted in some sort of conspiracy against the people. Instead of working tirelessly for the collective protection of the people’s interests and ensuring the cultivation of a culture that promotes good governance, the National Assembly has become a major cog in the wheel of progress and developmental democracy. How can a gathering of less than 500 people cream off N150 billion as direct charge from the annual budget without specific financial envelopes of expenditure? In theory and as promulgated in Government 101, democracy is nothing without an active legislature to curb the likely excesses of executive rascality. In practice, especially in democracies with unserious-minded fellows occupying the hallowed chambers, the legislature becomes part of the bigger problem. That is the irony of the Nigerian situation where, with over 350 resolutions made in addition to countless reports on investigative hearings, the executive hardly gives a hoot about implementations. And so, what we have in our hands is a National Assembly that blows hot and cold on every matter particular but that is, in the main, a toothless bull dog not only in the eyes of the executive but even in the perception of the public that it claims to represent!

    With the exception of a few hard nuts like Arunma Oteh, ask all the former heads of several ministries and parastatals about how vocal threats and oversights over alleged wrongdoings faded into inexplicable silences and puzzling Committee conclusions and you will know that so much water passed under the bridge!

    The question to ask is; has the National Assembly, which has appropriated a total of   N1.154trn from 2005 to 2014 out of the country’s total budget of N35.67trn during the period, justified this huge financial burden used to service its members? It is quite an irony that any discerning mind can easily sift the answers from the posers raised by Hamalai during the interactive session. Since it is safer to allow the readers to make up their minds on this issue, I hereby avail them of the posers contained in Hamalai’s paper:

  • NASS jumbo pay

    • The problem is not the basic salary but the magical allowances

    A pressure group, the Movement for Nigeria’s Total Transformation (MNTT), has perhaps raised the most profound query over National Assembly’s (NASS) hefty pay.

    “From 1999 to 2003, he earned N6million a year, from which he paid his aides,” MNTT quoted a South West senator, in the first senate of the present dispensation.  “What fortune has befallen Nigeria, that made N6 million a year for each senator, from 1999 to 2003, become N48 million a year, which is now N4 million a month, as disclosed by the RMAFC chairman?”

    The body, chaired by Chief Areoye Oyebola, former editor of the defunct Daily Times, was reacting to a claim by Elias Ebam, Chairman of the Revenue Mobilisation Allocation and Fiscal Commission (RMAFC), which constitutional role was to fix salaries and emoluments of political office holders.

    What has happened between 1999 and now — NASS has got more opaque and progressively brazen in helping itself to the common wealth it is constitutionally charged to guard and fairly appropriate? And RMAFC, progressively defanged, it could only wring its hands and point, near sotto voce, to an all-powerful culprit, NASS?

    To be fair, the public has been trenchant from the very beginning. But it would appear Nigerians could only bark, not bite. And horrors of horrors: by exclusively passing its own budget, and proceeding to share the pork among its members as it deemed fit, NASS is guilty of incestuous budgeting.

    That, indeed, does great violence to the doctrine of separation of powers; and its twin, checks-and-balances, on which presidentialism is anchored; and on which constitutionally robust platform NASS earned its over-sight function.

    It is therefore a condemnable case of wilful oversight, for NASS, by its opaque budgeting, to brazenly corner a mighty chunk of the common wealth, leaving the people, its electoral masters, to wallow in poverty. That is absolutely unacceptable.

    But even now, nobody appears sure of any fact — so near-impregnable is NASS’s fiscal opacity — beyond the jumbo yearly NASS budget of N150 billion, since 2010. Premium Times, an online newspaper claims, after an investigation, that the 360 members of the House of Representatives gross a yearly N6.58 billion, in salaries and allowances. The corresponding figure for the 109-member Senate is N2.14 billion.

    From the RMAFC, however, there is no definitive figure, not on the extant basic salary, not on allowances, only a plaintive moan from Mr. Ebam, that no NASS member should earn more than N1million a month, at the end of its current review. That certainly is not good enough. How could the RMAFC have been so remiss in its constitutional duty of over-seeing the pay of public office holders, elected and appointed?

    Mr. Ebam pleads poor funding; and argues RMAFC should be financially autonomous, by charging its funds to the Consolidated Revenue Fund. He also calls for power to enforce its recommendations. That is not unreasonable, though the call for charge into the Consolidated Fund smells like some fiscal empire building, which should not be necessary, had there been good faith all round. Anyway, whatever help RMAFC needs, to ensure sanity in public holders’ salaries, it should get.  But the practicability of any radical amendment to the extant law appears dim, since NASS would be crucial to the process, since its forte is law-making.

    Whatever it takes, the Buhari Presidency should do all it could to aid RMAFC right all the wrongs, in this lopsided salary scandal. NASS, for its public image and brand equity, should also cooperate. And if it doesn’t, the courts should weigh in to pronounce on any constitutional grey areas.

    In the final analysis, what to focus on is not the basic salaries, per se, but those magical allowances, which appear unconscionably loaded. More transparency in executive procedures would instantly cut out the  ever-recurring sleaze in legislative over-sight functions, which make many a legislator hanker after “juicy committees”. More on the executive: it must also drastically cut down on the perks of ministers and allied presidential appointees. It is no use roasting elected legislators, but letting presidential appointees wallow in their own unearned luxuries.

    Government is to serve but not to be served. The earlier this ethos is imbibed, the better Nigerian governments would maximally utilise scarce resources, ensure economic growth, and deliver development and ultimate prosperity.

  • N2.4b pay off bonanza for ex-Senators, Reps

    N2.4b pay off bonanza for ex-Senators, Reps

    •Lawmakers also went away with Prado, Peugeot 407 vehicles

    LEGISLATORS who served in the immediate past National Assembly (NASS) are going home with N2,494,300,000 as severance pay, it has been learnt.

    Those reelected into the present NASS also benefited from the package.

    The severance pay is computed at the end of every session of the National Assembly. The 7th session ended on June 4, paving the way for the inauguration of the 8th session on June 9.

    There are 109 senators and 360 House of Representatives members in the National Assembly.

    Senators got N6. 7 million each; Representatives, N4.9 million each.

    They were also given their official cars. Senators parted with N2 million each for their Prado Sport Utility Vehicles (SUV) and representatives, N1.9million each for their Peugeot 407 cars.

    The vehicles were distributed to them after their inauguration in 2011. The exercise sparked outrage across the country.

    The National Assembly leadership then said the vehicles were  “for use in performing committee functions.”

    Investigation by The Nation showed  that the Prado SUVs allocated to the Senators were supplied at a contract price of N12 million per unit although the market  price then was about N8 million.

    Sources said the amount deducted from the lawmakers’ severance gratuity was the ‘depreciation value’ of their cars.

    Payment of severance gratuity to federal legislators is contained in the  “Remuneration Package for Political and Public and Judicial Office Holders” (Feb 2007 to date) prepared by  the Revenue Mobilisation, Allocation and Fiscal Commission (RMAFC).

    Under the RMAFC guidelines, the Senate President is entitled to N7, 482, 727.50 as severance gratuity and   House of Representatives Speaker, N7, 431,330.

    Senators are entitled to N6, 079, 200 each and  representatives, N5, 955, 637.

    So far, members of the 8th National Assembly have collected N12,967,600,000 in salary and allowances within the first two months of their sitting.

    Senators got N36.4million each and representatives, N25million each.

    The first tranche of N10million, totalling N4.6billion, was paid to the Senators and Representatives in June to ‘cushion’ the difficulty of settling down in Abuja.

    The amount covered their housing, transport and furniture expenses.

    Last month, senators got another N13.4 million each and representatives, N7 million each as quarterly allowance.

    The legislators have gone on recess three times since their inauguration. They have yet to pass a bill.

    There are proposals to cut their emoluments because of the prevailing economic situation.

  • N120bn Budget: Reps set up committee to assess NASS’ needs

    N120bn Budget: Reps set up committee to assess NASS’ needs

    House of Representatives  Speaker, Yakubu Dogara, yesterday inaugurated  a committee to conduct a Needs Assessment of the chamber / National Assembly.

    The committee, which is made up of eminent Nigerians and representatives of  civil society organizations,  is to “judiciously determine the proper cost of running the legislative arm of government to enable it play its constitutionally-assigned responsibilities.”

    Dogara  said at the inauguration that for the legislative arm to function effectively, resources must be made available by the executive.

    “However, resources that may be made available would be based on the actual needs and not greed of the Legislature. There has been no study or assessment of what the legislature needs to perform optimally in Nigeria. We have all been making, at best, educated guesswork on whether the legislature is adequately funded or not,” he said.

    “An appropriate Needs Assessment may well find out that the Legislature in Nigeria is overfunded or that it is underfunded. There should be an empirical and objective study to determine this.

    “It is as a result, that the House of Representatives made a commitment in its Legislative Agenda to set up an Independent Committee comprising – Civil Society Organisations (CSO’s), independent Groups and professional bodies with the support of international development partners, to conduct a Needs Assessment of the actual requirements of running and maintaining the institution of the House of Representatives/National Assembly in Nigeria in order to carry out its legislative functions.”

    The terms of reference of the committee include:

    What it would cost the House of Representatives and the National Assembly to conduct Public Hearings on the bills and other legislative measures passed by both chambers, including live coverage of these activities; what it would cost to communicate all its proceedings and activities to its different constituencies and the general public;  what it would cost to build, equip and maintain all the infrastructure, like offices of the bureaucracy, Members, Committee Rooms, Hearing Rooms; modernization of Chambers of both Houses, electronic communications infrastructure, e- parliament facilities; what it would cost the National Assembly to conduct proper policy and budget oversight on the executive branch, including all its agencies in order to expose corruption, inefficiency or waste and what it would cost to take important legislative measures down to the grassroots, to members constituencies.

    Members of the Committee include Clement Nwankwo       (PLAC), who is the Chairman; National Institute for Legislative Studies (Secretariat);  Representative of the Clerk to the National Assembly,  Austin Alegeh; NBA President or Representative, Otunba Olufemi  Deru (ICAN President) or Representative,  Waheed Odusile (NUJ President)    or Representative, Elias Mbam (RMAFC)      or Representative, Senator Ita Enang        and Hon Albert Sam-Tsokwa.

    Others are Prof Mike Obadan, Dr Kabiru Mato,  Seun Onigbinde (BUDGIT), Idayat Hassan (CDD), Samson Itodo (YIAGA), Ben Arikpo (FEPAR), Saudatu Mahdi (WRAPA),  Mimidoo Achapa (WREP),  Clara Barnet (DFID)    and  Bolaji Kehinde (UNDP).

  • Euphoria and intransigence in NASS

    Euphoria and intransigence in NASS

    Moments after Speaker of the House of Representatives, Yakubu Dogara, announced the principal officers of the 8th House, in which he appeared to have caved in to the pressures of the All Progressives Congress (APC), the lower chamber quixotically erupted in euphoric praise. Mr Dogara was a hero, they chorused in unison. All swords must be, and are even now, beaten with the best of sculptural graces into ploughshares, they cooed. In his announcement, a part of which was encapsulated in deliberate, dramatic flourish, the Speaker undisguisedly conceded nearly all the disputed APC leadership positions to his opponents. Femi Gbajabiamila, who seemed to embody party supremacy, and had poignantly anchored the main opposition to Hon. Dogara’s team of legislative refuseniks, became the House Majority Leader.

    Had Hon. Gbajabiamila wanted that position on the day Hon. Dogara was elected Speaker, he would have got it a la grecque. But after spurning even the position of Deputy Speaker as beneath him in the giddy days of the rebellion against the party by the Dogara column, he had subsequently had to fight tooth and nail to grab a lower post, with a lot of metaphoric shedding of blood on the floor of the House. The party and party supremacists, including Hon. Gbajabiamila, are euphoric. Hon. Dogara himself perhaps feels heroic, having deigned to give sop to his opponents, and received such applause in return that probably left him bewildered. And those who voted the lawmakers into office also expressed relief that this needless rebellion and the grand posturing of legislative combatants had at last come to an unremarkable end.

    But the euphoria is inexplicable. Hon. Gbajabiamila has what he craved. The APC is mollified. And Hon. Dogara has his peace. However, it is doubtful whether any of the three is really satisfied. The Majority Leader knows that the Speaker was arm-twisted to concede to the party. The Speaker does not fully appreciate the point that party leadership positions in the legislature must be the exclusive preserve of the party, that is if it cannot be the preserve of tradition, which established and long-standing democracies enjoy. Had Hon. Dogara not eventually bowed to party wishes, it is hard to see how he could have known peace in the House. Nor is it clear how he and any lawmaker he could attract to his camp could hope to function without party programmes and philosophy. Did he understand these delicate points? Or did he simply reluctantly bow to party wishes in order to enjoy his reign?

    The public may be relieved that peace has finally been secured in the House of Representatives. But the ululation of the Gbajabiamila/party supremacist group was both indecent and obscene. Their group was right to insist on Hon. Dogara respecting party wishes. But by erupting in cheers and even garishly adorning the Speaker with the robes of heroism, the party supremacist group suggested they were dangerous opportunists — lawmakers without character and conviction. They should have taken the Dogara concessions with the placidity and profound aloofness of superior minds, and damned him with faint praise.

    If the farce in the lower chamber is condonable, it is hard to know what to say of the continuing intransigence in the upper chamber where the opinionated and recalcitrant Bukola Saraki is encasing his rebellion against his party in the granite of realpolitik and the cynical use of committee positions as baits. To him, the party does not exist outside the legislature, and its borders not inviolable to the opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). Believing that his position will become impregnable on account of the number of lawmakers he coaxes to his side, the Senate President has attracted as many senators as possible, irrespective of their political standing, moral stature, or deficiency of principles. He is praised by every rebel in the Senate, and venerated by the capricious and loquacious Dino Melaye.

    Senator Saraki is, however, unlikely to make any good impression on the equally adamant President Muhammadu Buhari who appears dead set against him. He may have seduced scores of foolish senators and representatives into accompanying his wife to the EFCC office, thus making an ass of themselves and giving the foul impression he is being persecuted by his APC opponents, but it is almost certain he will sink deeper into fallacies and contradictions. The Saraki rebellion is, however, not just an indication of the Senate President’s Machiavellian prowess, or his vaunted unassailability; it is also a more flagrant reflection of the low quality of legislators grandstanding wildly in the upper chamber. Alas, it is also a depressing show of how, irrespective of party leanings, the chamber is stuffed with unprincipled and unreflective opportunists devoid of any sense of the lofty purpose and inclination the ruling party enthused during the campaigns. Senator Saraki should be proud he is building a united and motivated army of undifferentiated lawmakers — an army solely dedicated, across party lines, to satisfying self, ego and financial greed.

     

  • Again, NASS comes up short

    Remember Salisu Buhari of Kano?  He was the first Speaker, 4th Republic House of Representatives.

    He was everything: rich, handsome, genteel, debonair, street-wise and dashing — until a certificate forgery scandal laid him bare.  He was also accused to have fast-tracked his age to make election into the House of Representatives, and eventually, its Speakership.

    But when the forgery scandal came, he came hurtling off his high throne.  He promptly got convicted too — and like the comet, he blipped off the public space.  Nevertheless, the Olusegun Obasanjo presidency granted him pardon, after conviction.

    But not so (at least in the public eye) the House, and by extension, the National Assembly which, from then, has somehow notched up the rather unsavoury image of chambers of eternal scandals.

    It was supposed to be a new beginning of democratic rectitude, after years of waste, driven by military turpitude.  But clearly, the National Assembly wouldn’t be part of that renaissance.

    Aside from Citizen Buhari’s trip, the late Evan(s) Enwerem, first president of the 4th Republic Senate (3 June 1999 – 18 November 1999) and Imo governor in the aborted 3rd Republic, was stewing in his own corruption juice.

    His nemesis was the dreaded “banana peel”, from which also the flamboyant Oyi of Oyi, Chuba Wilberforce Okadigbo (now dead), second Senate president (18 November 1999 – 8 August 2000), would slip.  They were both unhorsed in quick successions, no thanks to scandals, real or induced.

    Though Anyim Pius Anyim, the third incumbent (8 August 2000 – 29 May 2003) , would complete that turbulent but sole term (even that, at the expense of forfeiting a return to the Senate), the “banana peel” soon claimed its third scalp, Adolphus Wabara.

    Fourth senate president but only first president of senatorial term 2003-2007, Wabara was forced to resign (2005) via a bogus corruption scandal, reportedly pushed by a tag-team of the Obasanjo presidency and Nwabara’s own Igbo rival-claimants to the Senate presidency.  But a court later quashed the allegations, for lack of fair hearing.

    Ken Nnamani (2005-2007) would enjoy a relatively peaceful tenure as senate president, even, with regal panache, halting President Obasanjo’s illegal third term bid.  But the Senate presidency, assailed by scandals from the “Eastern home front”, proved a hideous churchyard for many a prominent South East politician.

    Meanwhile, the holy President Obasanjo, fiery commander-in-chief of the war against graft, who would share his glory with nobody, thought nothing of throwing the National Assembly to the wolves on “furniture allowance”.

    He made it known that the National Assembly (NASS) was some unconscionable allowance glutton, out to ruin his new age of rectitude.  But mum was the word, on the perks his own ministers and special advisers were grossing — no matter!

    The media loves sensation.  It even enjoys the more, roasting the proverbial high-and-the mighty.  The National Assembly’s goose was cooked.  It was the final departure — and NASS never made it back in the good books of public consciousness.

    Some 16 years down the line, from the first Buhari House of Representatives scandal, another Buhari is appearing on the anti-corruption horizon.  He is Muhammadu Buhari, president of the Federal Republic.

    From the previous historical back-grounding, President Buhari may well appear, like President Obasanjo before him, as another one come with executive swagger, to crush the longsuffering Nigerian parliament.

    The shriller the anti-corruption rhetoric, the more endangered the NASS, right?  And, as an endangered species, NASS has a right to defend its democratic territory?

    Indeed, there are interesting parallels between President Buhari and former President Obasanjo.  Both were former military heads of state, who secured democratic mandates.  Both enter their democratic era jobs as radical anti-corruption stalwarts.  Finally, both promise(d) a new dawn, after so many years in the woods.

    Still, with all due respect to President Obasanjo and all his anti-corruption activism, what he promised in 1999 has turned out nothing but a false dawn.

    If President Goodluck Jonathan pitifully crashed out of office in 2015 — and that, at the ruling elite’s scramble not to sink with him — the genesis of that rot was the Obasanjo presidency from 1999.  Its progressive decay climaxed in the Jonathan fiasco of 2015.  That has even made President Buhari’s anti-corruption stand all the more pressing and credible.

    Obasanjo’s systemic blackmail and muscling of the National Assembly (both the Senate and House of Representatives in perpetual near-permanent war state, almost always traced to some executive-fuelled intriguing), only led to a thorough subversion of the separation of powers/checks-and-balances doctrine.  That further underdeveloped the already disadvantaged parliament, since it stayed suspended in the military era.

    For the democratic polity, the severe result of such subversion is institutional shrivelling, with parliament becoming punier and the executive bigger; and corruption spiralling out of control.

    So, could the Buhari new anti-corruption war be a ready executive excuse to further pulverise the legislature?  Maybe.  Maybe not — though Buhari’s lean, ascetic and Spartan profile appears much more reassuring, for a genuine anti-sleaze war, than Obasanjo’s flabby, hedonistic and materialistic persona.

    Still, much as a strong, just and disciplined leader can, hopefully in Buhari, redeem the dawn of rectitude that the Obasanjo era so painfully promised but never delivered, a strong set of institutions would serve better the democratic polity.

    That is why the Senate must snap out of its present costly drama — costly to its own institutional health; even costlier to Nigeria’s ever delicate democratic project.

    ‘Senate President Bukola Saraki may have kicked off the Buhari era in a dust of scandal, as Speaker Salisu Buhari kick-started the Obasanjo era with a whiff of forgery’

    There are credible allegations that the Senate leadership election of July 9 held under a forged set of rules — Standing Orders 2015 (as amended) which magically replaced the extant rules at the end of the 7th Senate: Standing Orders 2007 (as amended).  Police investigations reportedly suggest there might be a prima facie case of that grave allegation.

    If that holds true, it means Senate President Bukola Saraki may have kicked off the Buhari era in a dust of scandal, as Speaker Salisu Buhari kick-started the Obasanjo era with a whiff of forgery.  That adds no shine to the legislature’s image, as a bastion of change — change for the better.

    Yet, the Senate response to this grave charge is a sickening espirit-de-corps, which tends to flex emotive muscles on the executive-legislature divide, instead of addressing the weighty question of alleged forgery of rules.

    Should the courts decide the case, and the worst fear is confirmed, NASS’s image, as a responsible and responsive legal citizen, would dip further.  An illicit but wilful cover-up is a war the Senate cannot win.

    Either way, it just might be prone to more executive bullying, should Buhari develop an Obasanjo-like messianic complex; and essay Obasanjo-era blackmail and muscling.  That must be avoided at all cost.

    That is why the Senate should do an unflattering introspection, and do what is right, by law and by morality.  Otherwise, NASS would come short again, and not illegitimately, be perceived as wilful obstacle to the present anti-corruption effort to bring the country back to life, from the grave of its past graft.

    That would be well and truly unfortunate

  • Senators pass confidence vote on Saraki, Ekweremadu, others

    Senators pass confidence vote on Saraki, Ekweremadu, others

    The Senate Tuesday began its plenary on a dramatic note as 81 Senators passed a vote of confidence on Senate President, Abubakar Bukola Saraki and Deputy Senate President, Ike Ekweremadu.

    The sudden vote of confidence on the leadership of the Senate which was unanimously adopted by Senators in the chamber appeared to be the anti-climax.

    The much anticipated showdown on the floor of the upper chamber failed to come to pass.

    The motion for the vote of confidence was sponsored by Senator Samuel Anyanwu (Imo East) and 80 others.

    Out of the 81 Senators, 35 are All Progressives Congress (APC) lawmakers while 46 other supporters of the motion are Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) platform.

    Anyanwu in his lead debate noted “with dismay the continued harassment of the Senate and Senators, the National Assembly Management and spouses of Senators by security agencies of government.”

    He said that the Senate is determined to continue to perform its constitutional duties and responsibilities without fear or favour.

    Anyanwu also said that the Senate is resolved to focus on matters of interest and importance to the ordinary people of Nigeria in view of the enormous challenges facing the nation.

    He added that; “considering the sustained interference in the internal affairs of the Senate by detractors and media propaganda against the Senate and Senators by selfish politicians.”

    He prayed the Senate to resolve to pass a vote of confidence on Senate President, Saraki, Deputy Senate President, Ekweremadu and the entire Senate leadership as presently constituted.

    The three prayers were unanimously adopted.

    Anyanwu also prayed the Senate “to call the Nigeria Police Force and all other security agencies in Nigeria not to allow themselves to be used by any person or persons to harass, intimidate or blackmail the Senate, Senators and or their spouses.”

    The prayer was equally unanimously carried.

    Saraki did not allow the motion to be debated.

    He said that since 81 Senators endorsed the motion, there was no need for further debate.

    The Deputy Senate Leader, Senator Bala Ibn N’Allah who took a bow on behalf other members of the Senate leadership said that they are resolved to work to justify the mandate given to them.

    N’Allah noted that the leadership of the upper chamber is poised to carry every Nigeria along as well as to do the needful in the interest of the country.

    He thanked those who supported the vote of confidence and assured that the Senate leadership would reflect the confidence vote in all decisions in the Senate.

  • NASS imbroglio: Beyond Saraki and Dogara

    No matter the shape and shade of a development or an experience, be it negative or positive, there is always one or two lessons to learn. It is in this context that I situate the scenes and scenarios that have been playing out at the Eighth National Assembly in Abuja, since the controversial inauguration of the august body on Tuesday, June 9.

    What brought us to this junction of confusion? The answer, which I believe many sincere and objective minds would share, is simply, the resolve of Senator Bukola Saraki, on one hand, and Honourable Yakubu Dogara, on the other, to defy the decision/directive of their political party – the All Progressives Congress (APC) – on whose platform they contested and won the National Assembly Election held on Saturday, March 28.

    The resolve of the two, to disobey the party, and consequently, the mode and manner of the election of foremost principal officers of the National Assembly – Senate President, Deputy Senate President, Speaker and Deputy Speaker House of Representatives, have thus brought us to the threshold of another constitutional crisis – party supremacy in conflict with independence of the legislature, the plank on which the duo and their supporters rests the rebellious stance against their party.

    A peep into the archives revealed that party supremacy was the main theme of the address of Chief Obafemi Awolowo to the Oyo State Conference of the defunct Unity Party of Nigeria (UPN) on Saturday, November 8, 1980.  The sage, among others stated that: “…. our constitution clearly makes a registered political party the cornerstone of the activities of all the members of that party, including those of them in the legislature and the executive, as well as those of them operating outside these two organs of government. Indeed, the registered political party is the sole source from which candidates for election, and elected members of the legislature and executive, derive their lifeblood for acceptability, public status, and legitimacy…. In other words, by express provision, as well as necessary implications in the constitution, the registered political party is supreme and absolutely decisive in the conduct of our public affairs.

    “If the party is supreme, then it is simple logic that in the matter of dispute, conflict, or antithesis between the legislature and the executive, the party in power should have the last say whenever a consensus cannot be reached between them.”

    If I have my way, instead of brooding over the least expected potent elements of national dislocation and destabilization of the polity, brewing in the National Assembly, I would advocate that the development be seen as a veritable opportunity to resolve lingering interwoven issues that had bedevilled the growth and development of true and sustainable democratic culture and principles, in this land, towards firming up the loopholes often exploited by politicians for crass opportunism.

    Some of the salient issues and questions begging for answer and clarification, as well as constitutional provisions for which judicial interpretations are required to put the politicians in check and stabilize the polity, are still flying in the air.

    First, should the Clerk of the National Assembly have gone ahead with the inauguration of the Senate with half of the number of expected elected senators in attendance? Should the 10a.m indicated by the President in his letter for the Proclamation of the National Assembly be iron cast? Could it not have been taken that the event should not hold earlier than 10a.m? Would it have been unconstitutional for the clerk to exercise a measure of discretion to give some minutes of grace for the other members to come on board? If the President were to be present in person for the proclamation – like some governors did in the state – what would have happened if, for one reason or the other, he was not able to arrive at the venue at 10a.m? What would have happened if the clerk, owing to an unforeseen circumstance, was unable to arrive for the exercise at 10am?

    Should the one-third quorum Clause (Section 54. 1, of the Constitution) for decision making while the senate is in session, be validly applicable, at inauguration (when the Senate/House is not in session yet) for election of the Senate President? If as stated in Section 50 (2c) of the constitution, as amended, it would require votes of not less than two-thirds majority of the members of the House to remove the Senate President, should he have been elected by a lesser fraction of members?

    It is instructive to note that for the President to be elected, he is required, according to the constitution, to win majority of votes and not less than one-quarter of votes cast in each of at least two-thirds of all the states in the federation and the FCT (Section 134). In the same vein, as provided in Section 144 (1a) of the constitution, a resolution passed by at least, two-thirds majority of members of the Executive Council of the Federation would be required to affirm incapability of the President, and same two-thirds majority to endorse the resolution to remove the President from office – Section 143 (9) of the Constitution (as amended). Notably, in all these instances, – not less than two-thirds majority is constant and consistent. 

    The main contentious issue in the National Assembly crisis, on which so much revolves, is party supremacy. One of the requirements stated in the 1999 Constitution (as amended) for qualification for election as a member of the Senate/House of Representatives is that, the candidate shall be a member of a political party, and is sponsored by that party – Section 65 (2b). Also, as explicitly stated in Section 221 of the Constitution, “no association, other than a political party shall canvass for any candidate at any election…..” Furthermore, such political party can neither be so recognized nor function unless “a copy of its constitution is registered in the principal office of the independent national electoral commission …. “ – Section 222(c).

    In this wise, should the party constitution and its provisions not be respected by party members? Should sanctions prescribed therein for disobedience to the party constitution not be visited defiant members? In all honesty, there is the need to put the Constitution to test, to untie ambiguous knotty ends, tighten exploitable lacunas and settle issues that were not envisaged by the constitution, as was the case in the issue of tenure of governors involved in re-run elections, resolved by the Supreme Court and consequent birth of Sections 135 (2A) and 178 (2A) of the Constitution (As Amended).

    It is logical to assume that APC has been cautious in its handling of the Saraki and Co.’s matter, exercising restraint in the imposition of sanctions, as prescribed in the party constitution, for fear of the unknown. One can safely assume that Senator Saraki, Honourable Dogara and members of their group have been so emboldened, to be so brazenly defiant to the position of their party because the likely Plan B could, characteristically, be to defect to the PDP. The implications are better imagined.

    ‘’I would advocate that the development be seen as a veritable opportunity to resolve lingering interwoven issues that had bedevilled the growth and development of true and sustainable democratic culture and principles, in this land, towards firming up the loopholes often exploited by politicians for crass opportunism’

    Defection or cross-carpeting (in the language of old) has been the stock in trade of our politicians, in the present political dispensation. This immoral act of political prostitution is ventilated by the loose end provided by the questionable bile of a caveat to Section 68 (1) (g) of the constitution, that has been the bane of the stability of the polity. For the growth of the much desired truly democratic culture, there must be an end to the adventure of nectar seeking butterfly politicians, moving from flower to flower.

    • Akinyemi writes via akinyemiayo@yahoo.com
  • NASS resumption will be rancour free – Senator

    NASS resumption will be rancour free – Senator

    Despite the unresolved leadership crisis rocking the National Assembly, member representing Niger East Senatorial district, Senator David Umaru has assured Nigerians of a rancour free resumption of the national legislature Tuesday.

    He told reporters in Minna Monday that members of the two chambers of the National Assembly are anxious to reconvene and resume their legislative duties after weeks of recess caused by the leadership crisis in the two chambers.

    According to him, “We are all anxious for a rancour free resumption on Tuesday. We are all anxious to make President Muhammadu Buhari succeed. Even the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) lawmakers, we are all out to ensure that the country works again.

    “We are all out to join hands with the President to fight corruption; to fix the country from decay of many years. We are conscious of the fact that deliberate efforts should be made to keep the country together for the benefit of all citizens”.

    He then advised the warring factions in the National Assembly to bury their hatches in the interest of the country and allow the National Assembly to settle down to work.

    “It is time for us (lawmakers) to settle down to work. Characters involved in the leadership crisis should allow us (law makers) to work. It is time to sheathe our sword and roll up sleeves to work and meet the aspirations of the masses that elected us,” Umaru advised.

    Umaru agreed on party supremacy, but advised that the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) should interfere less with the activities of the legislature.

    “The party should interfere less in the activities of the legislature. The legislature is an arm of government; it should be left to function independently. The earlier the party let us (law makers) be, the better for the country and the better for us all.”

    On the allegation that his Senatorial district was marginalised in the appointments so far made by Niger State governor, Abubakar Sani Bello, the legislator maintained that the governor has failed to adhere to Section 208(4) of the 1999 Constitution he sworn to protect in all the appointments made so far in the state.

    “I still maintain that the distribution of political appointments in the state was not equitable and that Niger East Senatorial zone has been short changed. I disagree that the governor has blank cheque to appoint as he likes without recourse to Section 208(4) of the 1999 Constitution.

    “I spoke for my constituents. My action has no personal motive or interest or ambition. I cannot be gagged from speaking for my people. My DNA is for the truth, nobody can gag me,” Umaru insisted.