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Tag: national assembly

  • Reps ‘fight’ in National Assembly

    Reps ‘fight’ in National Assembly

    There was tension yesterday in the National Assembly, as fight allegedly broke out between two lawmakers.

    The two legislators, Herman Hembe (APC Benue and chairman, FCT Committee) and Magaji Aliyu (APC Jigawa and a Femi Gbajabiamila loyalist), allegedly exchanged slaps at the lobby over issues related to committee distribution.

    Hembe is in Speaker Yakubu Dogara’s camp.

    Although what caused the fight could not be ascertained, The Nation learnt that the two lawmakers were at the lobby discussing in two groups and Hembe allegedly said he could die over “this particular matter.”

    Aliyu reportedly replied that why should Hembe say he wanted to die over an issue.

    Hembe then told Aliyu that he was not talking to him.

    Aliyu gave a hurtful response, which allegedly prompted Hembe to slap him. He was said to have retaliated.

    Other legislators were said to have intervened, preventing the situation from degenerating.

    The Deputy Speaker, Yussuf Lasun, who arrived at that time, convened a reconciliation meeting in Hearing Room 1 between the lawmakers.

    It was later attended by members of the APC caucus.

    There has been bad blood among members over the constitution of committees’ leadership.

    While some members said APC has been shortchanged in the distribution of committees, others, who have got committees, are reluctant to fight for the party or relinquish their committees.

    This has polarised APC members in the House of Representatives.

     

  • Between the Presidency and National Assembly

    The Presidency and the National Assembly appear to operate in contrasts with regards to the austere times we are in. While President Muhammadu Buhari (PMB) is threatening to downsize the federal ministries, and to have honourable ministers without portfolio to save costs, the Senate and the House of Representatives have both increased the number of their standing committees, and there is an ongoing schism over who gets the juicier of the committees. Perhaps, it is a reflection of the stability and confidence that PMB enjoys, as against the tenuous tenure of particularly Bukola Saraki, as senate president.

    So, while PMB is issuing stringent terms and conditions of employment to his ministers; Saraki, and the House Speaker Yakubu Dogara, are ‘bribing’ their colleagues with chairmanship of juicy committees, to starve the lurking threats to their own juicy position.The scenario in the Senate is particularly interesting. Out of 109 senators, the Senate President created 65 standing committees. The direct implication for the national economy will be the budgetary provision for the paraphernalia of office for the 65 chairmen and their deputies; while the indirect consequence is the atomised pressure for patronage from ministries, departments and agencies of government, under the guise of oversight functions.

    Comparatively, in the United States, a country of over 318 million people (2014), which has the biggest economy in the world; their 100-man Senate has 16 standing committees, 67 sub-committees and five non-standing committees. An interesting angle to the composition of their committees is that all the chairmen of the committees are members of the majority party in parliament. In Nigeria, apparently as a survivalist plan, the Senate committee chairs were shared between the parties.  While the majority party, the All Progressives Congress has 41, the minority Peoples Democratic Party, got 24 committee chairs.

    In the House of Representatives, the Speaker who had managed to tamper the anger of his party men following his tumultuous emergence; is on the boiler again, for giving what is considered juicy committee chairs to his PDP collaborators. Out of the 96 committees announced by the lower house, the ruling APC has 48 committees, while the leading opposition party, the PDP has 46 chairmen, and the other two smaller parties, one chairman each. There, Dogara’s intra-party opponents led by Femi Gbajabiamila, are fuming that not only did he give his compatriots just half of the committee chairs available, the Speaker had the temerity to give away what they consider the ‘juicy committees’ to the opposition legislators.

    Unfortunately for  Saraki, the fire this time is from the outside. Unlike his intrigue laden ascendency to the senate presidency, cunning and subterfuge have not yielded any positive result in his numerous fights in the court. His legal team are presently in quandary, and are running from pillar to post, desperately clutching at anything in sight to save their drowning principal. The famed PMB’S body language, which influence is degrading in other respects, still invokes the feeling that the president will not trade in, a save-saraki-interference in the judicial process, for legislative support.

    As we await the denouement of the power play between the Buhari and the Saraki tendencies in APC, I recommend to PMB and our political leaders, Lee Kuan  Yew’s famous book: From Third World To First – The Singapore Story: 1965 – 2000. I will now quote extensively from the book. At page 199-200, the man highly regarded as the father of Singapore, wrote: “Running a government is not unlike conducting an orchestra. No prime minister can achieve much without an able team. While he himself need not be a great player, he has to know enough of the principal instruments from the violin to the French horn and the flute, or he would not know what he can expect from each of them.”

    He went further: “My style was to appoint the best man I had to be in charge of the most important ministry at the period, usually finance, except at independence when defense (sic) became urgent…. The next best would get the next most important portfolio”. Expatiating further, he wrote: “I will tell the minister what I wanted him to achieve, and leave him to get on with the task; it was management by objective. It worked best when the minister was resourceful and could innovate when faced with new, unexpected problems. My involvement in their ministries would be only on questions of policy.”

    In an earlier chapter, at page 95, on building A fair, Not Welfare, Society,Lee Kuan Yew, wrote: “A competitive, winner-takes-all society… would not be acceptable in Singapore…. To even out the extreme results of free-market competition, we had to redistribute the national income through subsidies on things that improved the earning power of citizens, such as education. Housing and public health were also obviously desirable. But finding the correct solution for personal medical care, pensions, or retirement benefits was not easy. We decided each matter in a pragmatic way, always mindful of possible abuse and waste. If we over-re-distribute by higher taxation, the high performers would cease to strive. Our difficulty was to strike the right balance”.

    In his closing remarks, reflecting on his many years in power, Lee wrote at page 663: “My experience of developments in Asia has led me to conclude that we need good people to have good government. However good the system of government, bad leaders will bring harm to their people”. Reflecting on the challenges of a multi-ethnic country and democratic governance, he said at page 664: “In a new country where loyalties are to tribal leaders, they (the leaders) must be honest and not self-serving or the country is likely to fail whatever the constitutional safeguards.”

     

  • That immunity proposal by National Assembly

    SIR: Imagine that members of the 8th National Assembly had announced during the recent general election campaigns exactly how they were going to tear up section 308 of the 1999 Constitution (which protects the president, vice president, governors and their deputies against civil and criminal proceedings while they are in office) to grant their leaders immunity from prosecution for corruption and money laundering.

    Had they done this, it’s almost certain that they would not have been elected (or re-elected) as parliamentarians in a free and fair election. But a few months after becoming ‘Honourable members’ of the 8th National Assembly, they announced through the Minority Leader of the House of Representatives, Leo Ogor that they would begin the process of constitution amendment to grant the Senate President and his deputy, Speaker of the House of Representatives and his deputy immunity from prosecution for corruption and money laundering.

    This immunity initiative is coming on the heels of the trial of the Senate President, Dr. Bukola Saraki on 13 counts of false assets declaration before the Code of Conduct Tribunal, thus suggesting that the two may not be unconnected. The immunity initiative looks like one for self-aggrandisement.

    This is undoubtedly a low period in public esteem for our ‘lawmakers.’

    What the National Assembly is doing is patently at odds with the ‘anti-corruption agenda’ of President Muhammadu Buhari and the ‘political change’ that Nigerians voted for. This is like taking Nigeria back to the middle ages. And it clearly undermines the rule of law as it portrays the lawmakers as being above the law.

    It’s double standard for the lawmakers to make laws to regulate others while tearing up the constitution to be free of regulation themselves.

    The 1999 Constitution (as amended) recognizes the role of the National Assembly to “make laws for the peace, order and good governance of the federation.” This suggests that when it comes to issue of corruption, members of the 8th National Assembly should worry less about their own interest and more about the citizens who are the real victims of corruption.

    As a law-making body whose primary duty it is to make laws for good governance, its purpose ought to be to rid the country of impunity for those who will commit high level official corruption, with a philosophy that doesn’t recognize immunity or give leeway to the most powerful or influential.

    Extending rather than limiting immunity from prosecution for corruption involving parliamentarians is a licence to impunity and lawbreaking, which clearly isn’t compatible with good governance. Parliamentarians promoting and granting immunity to themselves can only serve to launder the rule of the powerful rather than the rule of law.

    And it’s patently inconsistent with the United Nations Convention against Corruption to which Nigeria is a state party. The convention in fact requires Nigeria to achieve “appropriate balance between any immunities” and to “ensure effective investigation, prosecution and adjudication of corruption offences.”

    It is not by clinging to whatever will shield them from their perceived political foes that members of the 8th National Assembly will better perform their law-making role. And it doesn’t have to be at the expense of the fight against corruption.

    After all, there is always the judiciary and due process of law to take care of any perceived abuse of anti-corruption laws by the authorities.

    If only members of the 8th National Assembly can grasp the thinnest slice of what victims of corruption experience, they will re-think their proposal to grant their leaders immunity from prosecution for corruption.

    President Buhari should be aware that the immunity initiative poses serious risks to his anti-corruption agenda, and the likelihood of it being compromised is very high. He should speak out and move swiftly to dissuade members of the National Assembly from taking forward the immunity initiative if his vision ‘to be remembered as a Nigerian president who fought corruption to a standstill’ is to be effectively realised.

     

    • Kolawole Olaniyan

    Amnesty International, London.

     

     

     

     

  • Kano Speaker seeks protection for whistle blowers

    The Speaker of Kano state House of Assembly, Alhaji Kabiru Alhassan Rurum has called on members of the National Assembly to enact laws that will protect anti-corruption crusaders, whistle blowers and witnesses who are ready to volunteer information about corruption cases.

    Alhaji Rurum said without a legislation aimed at protecting volunteers of information in corruption cases, the fight against corruption would not achieve the desired impact and results in the country.

    The lawmaker spoke in Abuja Tuesday at the opening ceremony of the sixth National Workshop on Transparency and Accountability for members of State Assembly from the north-west zone of the country.

    He said at the workshop organised by the Anti-Corruption Academy of Nigeria, ACAN, that fear of harassment, intimidation, and insecurity occasioned refusal of people from stepping forward to give testimony about corruption cases in courts and before anti-corruption agencies.

    The Speaker said the National Assembly should do more to strengthen the war against corruption to ensure citizens’ protection especially when they are prepared to offer information and testify against people who abuse public trust and engaged in activities that undermined the economy of the country.

    He said members of the state legislators paticipating in the workshop would act as change agents at their various communities to ensure that the crusade against corruption yeild the desired results for the good of the people.

    The Provost of the Anti-Corruption Academy, Professor Sola Akinrinade said the workshop was packaged for the legislators as part of the strategy to fight corruption and enhance quality of leadership and service delivery at various leadership levels in the country.

    He said it is imperative for state legislators to play pivotal role in the fight against corruption in the interest of the various communities they are representing and the need to ensure transparency and accountability in the business of governance at the state level.

  • Live streaming of ministerial screening

  • Immunity for all

    Immunity for all

    It is one of the most seminal ideas – no, I take that back:  It is far and away the most seminal idea ever proposed from the floor of the National Assembly since constitutional rule was restored in 1999.

    This time, I will not economise my material and keep readers in suspense as is my wont.  I will come right out with it and state without fear of contradiction that the proposal to confer immunity on the principal officers of the National Assembly, with collateral benefit for the Chief Justice of Nigeria, lest the judicial branch feels neglected, is the most thoughtful and sagacious matter that ever came out of its hallowed precincts.

    Its wisdom is self-evident.

    When the president of the Senate is hauled from one court to another to answer charges resulting from criminal investigations, he is bound to be distracted.  When he is distracted, the business of the Senate is bound to be disrupted.

    Only this past weekend, another official of the Senate was grilled for some nine hours by the  EFCC in the investigation of serious fraud.  And the indications are that, in the coming weeks, more lawmakers will be called in for questioning by one anti-corruption agency or another.

    This practice, if not checked, will cripple the National Assembly.  And the public the Assembly serves with such unstinting devotion and solicitude will be the loser.  It will undermine the autonomy of the legislative branch that Senate President Bukola Saraki has been guarding so jealously.

    The immunity being canvassed for principal officers of the legislature and the chief justice is therefore a step in the right direction, a major step to be sure, but only a step. And it is flawed, dangerous flawed, as I see it, in one important respect:  it is limited to only a few officials who constitute less than one per cent of the population.

    How can democracy thrive in such a setting?  Limited immunity is, like limited franchise, inegalitarian.  Being inegalitarian, it is incompatible with democracy.  If we are serious about enthroning democracy – and I am persuaded that we are, since all our policy makers never tire of so proclaiming – we should widen the immunity the National Assembly is mulling.

    Since all citizens are equal before the law and the Constitution, the immunity will have to be accorded all citizens without exception.  “Immunity for all,” not in 2020, but today, now, should be the new rallying cry.

    The President, Vice President, governors and their deputies enjoy constitutional immunity,  as they should.  But the immunity ends the moment they leave office.  Should they have to face any kind of harassment thereafter?  Conferring them with immunity that has no limit will insulate them from such indignity.

    Judges and officers of the law also enjoy the legal protection for what they say or do in the discharge of their official functions.  Again, why a limited immunity?  What would be lost by granting them full immunity in every context and contingency, so that they can live the rest of their days in peace and contentment?

    How about the police?  If they had to worry about the consequences of arresting, locking up or beating up the wrong suspect, would they ever move diligently against suspects or actual criminals?  And, mind you, many of those they go after are dangerous men and women packing superior firepower.  It is bad enough that the police are ill-clad,  ill-housed and ill-paid.  Must they also be denied total and unfettered immunity?

    Recently, some courts have been issuing orders restraining the police in perpetuity from arresting, detaining or prosecuting some suspects in the investigation of criminal activity.  That is a kind of immunity all right, but only for some favoured and well-heeled persons.  Why not democratise the whole thing and confer immunity on everyone in the community?

    Lawmakers already enjoy parliamentary immunity.  Whatever they say on the floor of the House properly convened about anybody in the course of a debate or discussion, however injurious it may be to an individual or institution, is absolutely privileged.  No successful defamation law suit can flow from it.

    But why limit the immunity to statements made during parliamentary debates?   Why not extend it to the statements they make outside the National Assembly, and to their conduct generally? If they had to worry about the intended or unintended consequences of their conduct, would they ever pursue their work diligently?

    And if the media had to worry about defamation lawsuits, can they really uphold the duty and accountability of the government to the public as enjoined by the Constitution?  To do that, they have to be accorded boundless immunity.

    Before American-style medical malpractice lawsuits cripple our healthcare delivery system, doctors and hospitals will have to be granted full immunity.  If they had to answer for everything that goes wrong under them, they will spend more time worrying about the vast sums they will have to shell out as damages than thinking of how to improve their skills.

    Through sheer terror, drivers of taxis, mini buses , trailers, tankers and articulated vehicles and their unions conferred immunity on themselves long ago.  They drive unmindful of other road users, they park anywhere and obstruct the flow of traffic, and are ever so ready to visit violent reprisal on anyone who questions their behaviour.

    Full and unfettered immunity might just be the elixir that will make them more amenable to civilised conduct.

    When I was growing up, parents and teachers operated on the principle that if you spared the rod, you spoiled the child.  These days, teachers are wielding the cane less frequently, for fear of what Ade’s parent might do if they gave him a real spanking.   So, even under the greatest provocation, they cannot touch Ade.   The result is that Ade grows more and more intractable.

    Granting teachers full and complete immunity is the surest path to restoring Nigeria’s lost educational glory.

    Several years ago, a principal who made it impossible for students to cheat in the West African School Certificate examination was punished, the authorities said, for putting the students at a competitive disadvantage.  That would not happen in a situation where teachers enjoy complete immunity.

    As for those who aid and abet examination malpractices by selling live questions to willing buyers, they already enjoy close to absolute immunity.  As far as I know, no one peddling live exam papers has been arrested, much less prosecuted.  All that remains is to formalise the immunity and extend it to their sundry patrons.  The immunity will also have to extend to parents who from sheer desperation take university matriculation exams as proxy for their children who cannot make the cut.

    Landlords who forcibly evict disobliging tenants should not have to answer at law.  Whose house is it anyway?  But in a society that guarantees equal protection under the law, the tenant who stands his ground should also enjoy the fullest immunity.

    Under this new doctrine, banks that advance dubious loans to even more dubious borrowers  should enjoy the fullest immunity from liability.  So should delinquent borrowers.

    I almost forgot the elections umpire INEC, which gets shafted with more law suits in a single year that all other public agencies combined.   Should it not be insulated from such rascality?  And should election candidates also not enjoy complete immunity from whatever INEC does or fails to do?

    As the late and much-lamented Dr K. O. Mbadiwe would have said, let immunity jam immunity.

  • Lasun: National Assembly ’ll back convention on refugees, migration

    Lasun: National Assembly ’ll back convention on refugees, migration

    THE Deputy Speaker of House of Representatives, Yussuff Lasun, has promised that National Assembly will give legislative backing to refugees and the Inter-Parliamentary Union’s (IPU) Convention on Migration Mobility.

    He spoke yesterday at the launched of a document on the convention at the on-going 133rd Assembly of the IPU in Geneva, Switzerland.

    The document was designed to educated legislators, government officials, non-governmental agencies (NGO), civil society groups and others providing services to rural populations “on governing, administering and managing migration”.

    Reacting to how Nigeria would domesticate the document, Lasun said the country has always been alive to its responsibilities concerning migrants and displaced people.

    He said Nigeria would have no problem internalising the document when backed with legislative powers.

    He said: “If we are going to be factual, Nigeria has always been proactive about these issues and you should recall that the House has just created a standing Committee on refugees.

    “Besides, the Speaker, Yakubu Dogara, is keen on the issue of refugees and displaced people and proactive about how deliberate efforts aimed at reconstructing the Northeast should be put in place.

    “So, I don’t think this document will be difficult to domesticate.”

    The deputy speaker assured that Nigeria would continue to play leading roles on global issues following the adoption of the African position on refugees by the Assembly on Monday.

     

     

    Lasun chaired the African regional group that adopted the Sudanese position.

    The author of the document, Patrick Taran, who is president, Global Migration Policy, was also optimistic that Nigeria would not lag behind in the implementation of the convention.

    Taran, who had worked previously on the issue in Nigeria, said: “It is becoming crucial to ensure the viability of economies in developed world and increasingly, a key element to development in the integration of Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS).

    “In fact, the book respond to the fact that even for large countries like Nigeria, a country with migrants overseas with an estimated two million immigrants, something like 80 or 90 per cent coming from other West African countries to provide essential services, labour and skills that are not necessarily present in Nigeria as a nation.

    “I was personally involved last year in conducting a survey in Nigeria looking at the extra-domestication and implementation of this convention, which has been ratified by Nigeria.

    “We found a high degree of domestication of national law, but we still found some gaps. Some provisions are yet to be put into law, which means there are some laws for legislators to do. And importantly, what need to be done now in Nigeria is implementing the National Labour Migration Policy Framework that was adopted last year in November by the Federal Executive Council (FEC).

    “It provides blueprint with mandates from all of the different concerned ministries to do what is necessary to effect migration in the country.”

     

     

  • SERAP condemns proposed immunity for lawmakers

    SERAP condemns proposed immunity for lawmakers

    The Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project (SERAP) yesterday described as a setback for transparency, plans by the National Assembly to give lawmakers immunity from prosecution. SERAP was reacting to the proposed constitution amendment triggered by the legislators in the buildup of the allegations against Senate President, Dr. Bukola Saraki.

    In a statement signed by the group’s executive director,  Adetokunbo Mumuni, the lawmakers were accused of trying to shield Saraki and the Speaker,  House of Representatives, Yakubu Dogara from prosecution over alleged corruption.

    He said the proposed immunity for lawmakers tantamount to breaking the law, demanding an end to the process.

    Describing the move as a clear breach of public trust and a form of political corruption, he challenged civil society groups to vigorously challenge the lawmakers.

    “It is a huge setback for transparency, accountability and the rule of law that the same privileged and powerful leaders of parliament who regularly make laws that consign powerless Nigerians to prison for even trivial offences, want to establish elite immunity to protect themselves from the consequences of corruption and money laundering: “That is the Nigerian justice system in a nutshell. This is called breaking the law.

    “This initiative by the leaders of the National Assembly is coming at a time countries like Guatemala has voted unanimously to strip their president of immunity from prosecution for corruption. “The message the leadership of the National Assembly is sending to us is clear: in Nigeria, powerful and influential actors must not be and are not subject to the rule of law. It’s simply not proper for lawmakers to be the chief advocates of immunity for corruption,” stated Mumuni.

    Continuing, the SERAP boss said: “This is an unacceptable proposition as it gives the impression that both the Senate President and the Speaker of the House and others are above the law.

    “If the leaders of the National Assembly should have their way, this will shield the Senate President and Speaker of the House of Representatives from any legal accountability and rob millions of Nigerians of their rights to accountable government.

    “Public officials who are genuinely committed to the well-being of the state and its people, and to the estab­lishment of an effective and functioning system of administration of jus­tice, should have absolutely nothing to fear.

    “We will work with other members of the civil society to vigorously challenge this gift of immunity against corruption and blatant breach of public trust by the National Assembly.”

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  • Nigerians must be ready to storm this bastille (the National Assembly)

    ‘Like a partridge that hatches eggs it did not lay, are those who gain riches by unjust means.
    When their lives are half gone, their riches will desert them, and in the end they will prove to be fools. – Jeremiah 17: 11

    It is a shame of monumental proportions that  84 members of  the  senate of  the Federal Republic of Nigeria could,  in pursuit of  juicy senate committees, permit  themselves to be rail roaded into passing a vote of confidence  in  a man, albeit the senate president, standing trial on thoroughly scandalous charges before the Code of Conduct Tribunal. Granted that Senator Bukola Saraki is presumed innocent, a more honourable group should have prevailed on him to step aside until his honour has been fully restored. It says so much for the moral of these senators, many of them brandishing, not only higher degrees, but membership of distinguished professions. Writing on today’s topic reminds me of Dr Segun Osoba, my teacher of unmatchable perspicacity, who taught both my Diplomatic History and Philosophy of History at degree level. Deploying deep insight and introspection, he had uncannily predicted today’s Nigeria way back some five decades ago. That wasn’t by magic, but the result of  clear-headedness and a principled stand on the side of the PEOPLE in their interminable war against the supposed great men of power; the despoilers of common causes, and oppressors of the flotsam and jetsam of society. Like most rational thinkers, my teacher voted for Holism over and above, Individualism.

    However, before we go into all that, let me most sincerely thank those who made my 70th birthday such an unforgettable and impactful event. This entire page will not contain their names but the good Lord knows you all. They made me an open book, saying what they know and believe about me as Olu Aluko did when he wrote on ekitipanupo: “indomitable is an appropriate word to describe Oga Orebe who, at 70, is still rugged, dogged, persistent and as ‘constant as the northern star – a man to admire and engage with, intellectually. Amiable and well cultured, he is a good example of what people should perceive of the Ekiti man!” I have since replied to thank  him while not forgetting to ask all the forumites, and  everybody  reading this, ‘to  kindly stretch a hand towards me in prayers  to the end that the Almighty God  will continue to instruct and guide me a right, to the last days of my life’.

    What the group of 84 senators is doing, holding up Senator Bukola Saraki as being superior to other Nigerians and should therefore walk away with a slap on the wrist instead of defending himself before the Code of Conduct Tribunal, completely stands logic on the head as it makes nonsense of the Hegelian postulate that the whole is greater than the part, and that the state is superior to an anarchic agglomeration of individuals, no matter what name they call themselves. In Hegel’s metaphysical doctrine – I don’t know how much of this our aspiring emperors of the Nigerian senate know – value, integrity and common sense reside in the whole, not in the part just as the eye is worthless when separated from the body. In the instant case, Saraki and his colleague senators, like the senate itself, are nothing more than a mere part of a country whose critical component are the PEOPLE. It is therefore numbing and defies all logic that Saraki, in being taken before a tribunal for his alleged personal transgressions, and having all the wherewithal to hire all of Nigeria’s SANs, can suddenly be equated to the whole senate as is now being mischievously claimed by the complicit 84 members, uproariously insisting that the senate leadership is being targeted and embarrassed. Senator Bukola Saraki, in case they truly do not know, is only  an individual and no amount of grandstanding by any number of bigoted  individuals, seeking after their own greed, must be allowed to shame the Nigerian judiciary as his mocking lawyers appear to be inclined. To succeed in that will mean that Saraki is a super man who can will whatsoever he wants on Nigerians. This is totally unacceptable and for every misguided pro-Saraki group demonstrating, there must be twenty or more, representing the interests of the Nigerian masses who remain victims of our politicians’ anti social devises. This tit for tat must continue until those misguided senators know that it’s inadvisable for them to hop up to Abuja, any longer, because they have proved to be enemies of the Nigerian people.

    For a whole sixteen years, these people, together with some who are now outside the power loop, but all the same luxuriating in their stupendous loot, ran this country aground, pauperising its peoples in the process. Now comes President Buhari, ready to right millennial wrongs since he appreciates that stealing is corruption but they think they can hamstring his administration. Nigerians say no. Indeed, they have a surprise waiting for them from the Nigerian masses and workers whose mere N18,ooo.oo  monthly salary remains unpaid for months before President Buhari came to their aid. It will be a shame of unimaginable proportions should pauperised Nigerians look askance and allow this ongoing Abuja shenanigan by a people who, by their own admission, earn unimaginable remuneration.

    In his defence when the EFCC arrested a former Speaker of the House of Representatives, it became common knowledge that these legislators, consequent upon a decision at an executive session on 30, March 2010, earn the following un-appropriated remunerations: Speaker – N100m, Deputy Speaker, N80m, House Leader N60m, Deputy House Leader N57.5m, Chief Whip N55m, Deputy Chief Whip, N54.5m, Minority Leader, N54.5m, Minority Whip, N50m, Deputy. Minority Leader, N50m, Deputy Minority Whip, N50m’.

    Is it a surprise then they have been fighting to the death wanting to grab these sinecure positions? These remunerations may have since been increased and Nigerians can only imagine what senators must be taking home quarterly from the national purse if the above is paid to House members. This, I imagine, is why they have now decided to distract President Buhari. And Nigerians just must say enough is enough.

    We must let them know that they lie if they ever think that through their continuing belligerence, they can cause anti-democratic elements to intervene because the civilised world hugely respects President Muhammadu Buhari for that eventuality to happen. Indeed, no soldier worth his commission will attempt that, having seen what transpired in Burkina Faso this past week. These senators, who are obviously not busy except  mounting a guard of honour  for Senator and Mrs Saraki wherever EFCC takes them, should find something  worthwhile  to do with their time. They should let Saraki be man enough to answer for his own actions. Saraki comes well prepared: a medical doctor, two-time state governor and Senate President.  His fair weather friends, as he would soon know, should allow him defend himself so that, rather than being remembered for those charges, history would record him as a man who stood up for his actions. Enough, too, of this chimera. Senator Bukola Saraki cannot equate the senate. He represents only a third of Kwara State in that hallowed chamber and the charge he faces is not against the senate as an institution. Those who are saying so should know that they are being laughed at all over the civilised world.

    For Nigerian politicians in general, there can be no better way of ending this piece than to quote Joe Igbokwe in his article in The Nation of 1st October, 2015 where he wrote:”Nigeria at 55 with Muhammadu Buhari as president provides a new window for all of us to sit up and be smart in re-ordering the way we do things. The massive flow of refugees from Libya, Iraq, Syria, Yemen and Africa into Europe should be food for thought for our leaders. Boko Haram insurgents, MASSOB and Niger Delta militants remain a big challenge to all. We must rise above ethnic sentiments in order to confront these threats and build the Nigeria of our dream.”

  • Akpabio opens defence before election tribunal

    Akpabio opens defence before election tribunal

    The Akwa-Ibom National Assembly Election Petitions Tribunal, sitting in Abuja, on Wednesday entertained two witnesses in defence of the election of Sen. Godswill Akpabio, (PDP-Akwa-Ibom North-West).

    At the resumed hearing of the case, counsel to Akpabio, Mr Paul Usoro (SAN), told the tribunal that the first respondent intended to call 25 witnesses.

    One of the witnesses, Prof. Adewale Ladipo, who is the National Secretary of Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), said the Akpabio won the party’s primaries for Akwa-Ibom North-West Senatorial District.

    “ PDP sponsored Chief Goodswill Akpabio for Akwa-Ibom North-West Senatorial District election and he won with a very wide margin.

    “ Also, I am aware that parties submitted to INEC, forms indicating list of names for contestants and Akpabio`s name was among. INEC did not complain that we mislead it,’’ he said.

    In his testimony, the second witness, Mr Olatunji Oshuntokun, who supervised the PDP primaries in A’Ibom North-West and South Senatorial districts, said the elections were conducted in a peaceful atmosphere.

    Oshuntokun added that they were free and fair adding that d Akpabio won the A’Ibom North-West primary election.

    The candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Chief Inibehe Okori for the election and APC, had taken Akpabio, PDP and INEC to court over the outcome of the election.

    The Chairman of the tribunal, Justice Goddy Anunihu, adjourned sitting to Sept. 10, to enable Akpabio produce other witnesses.