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Tag: national assembly

  • It’s International Day of Persons with Disabilities

    SIR:This day, December 3, has been set aside annually for the observance of the International Day of persons with disabilities as proclaimed in 1992, by the United Nations General Assembly resolution 47/3. Its observance seeks to promote understanding of disability issues and to mobilize support for the dignity, rights and well-being of persons with disabilities. It also seeks to increase awareness of gains to be derived from the integration of persons with disabilities in every aspect of political, social, economic and cultural life.

    We appreciate the National Assembly for harmonization, adoption and passage of the Discrimination against Persons with Disabilities (Prohibition) Bill for the third time since the advent of this democratic era. The bill provides for the prohibition of discrimination and harmful practices against persons with disabilities. It also provides for rights to health, education, participation in political activities and National Commission for persons with disabilities.

    We acknowledge states that have enacted disability laws like Plateau, Bauchi, Ekiti and Lagos. These states have made robust provisions for the protection of their citizens with disabilities from cruel and harmful practices. But very important is the criminalization of discrimination on grounds of disability which is a critical factor in the daily lives of citizens with disabilities.

    We are worried that Nigerian banks claim to promote financial inclusion but exclude Nigerians with disabilities. Participation of citizens with disabilities in banking activities is becoming limited due to lack of access to banking halls and services. We are also concerned that eligible Nigerians with disabilities may not participate in the 2015 general elections due to limited provisions for PWDs in the Electoral Act even as amended. INEC has capitalized on it to deny PWDs access to participation in the electoral process. Efforts to compel INEC to enhance effective participation of PWDs in the electoral process have been unsuccessful due to absence of enabling legal framework.

    Finally, we are also worried that the Boko Haram insurgency has raised more persons with disabilities than we can think or imagine. Whenever a bomb drops, after the casualties, the rest are those who might have lost a part of their body. Yet, the National Information Centre hardly informs Nigerians about the number of persons disabled as a result of the attacks. Those that survive the attacks that are disabled are on their own due government neglect.

    We call on the President to use this year’s observance to sign the disability bill into law so as to reduce the challenge of living with disability in Nigeria. Government at all levels should take appropriate steps to enhance access to justice for citizens with disabilities. This is achievable through removal of institutional, environmental and attitudinal barriers that hinder access to Police Stations, court premises, Alternative Dispute Resolution Centres and the cost of justice.

    The Central Bank should also take necessary measures to ensure citizens with disabilities have access to financial institutions in the spirit of financial inclusion campaign. Widening the poverty level of Nigerians with disabilities due to minimal access to banking halls and services is a classical example of how not to promote financial inclusion and poverty reduction, as disability causes poverty and poverty causes disability.

    David O. Anyaele

    Ikeja, Lagos,

     

     

  • Police invasion of National Assembly

    Police invasion of National Assembly

    In Garba v F.C.S.C (1988) 1 N.W.L.R. (Pt.) 449, SCN, the Supreme Court of Nigeria held inter alia: “Under our constitution we have opted for separation of powers among the three arms of government – The Executive, The Legislature and The Judiciary. It is contrary to the letters and spirit of the Constitution that any of the three arms should interfere with the other in the performance of its functions. If that is allowed to happen, it will lead to chaos, lawlessness and destruction of the Constitution” (emphasis mine). In my view, such interference is worst, when those who bear arms to protect the constitution, use it, to shoot at it.

    The invasion and barricade of the National Assembly by the Police, an arm of the executive, about a fortnight ago, is one such interference, which should be deprecated by all. The head of the police who triggerred the flagrant resort to self-help by some legislators, the IGP Alhaji Suleiman Abba, tried to justify the barricade, on the lame excuse that the police wanted to prevent the protesting members of the All Progressive Congress (APC), from gaining access to the National Assembly, as they had allegedly threatened. But he has not explained why some of the legislators from the ruling party had free passage, when their colleagues from the opposition party, were locked out.

    The IGP Abba also tried to justify his action, on the ground that Honourable Aminu Tambuwall, the Speaker of the House of Representatives has lost his mandate, on the ground that the courts had held that there was no division in the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), to justify his decampment to the APC, under section 68(1)(g) of the 1999 Constitution, as amended. Appearing before the House committee on Police Affairs, the IGP who recognised that the dispute is subjudice, however refused to recognise Tambuwall as Speaker, despite an order of a Federal High Court, that status quo ante, should be maintained. Just like his unilateral withdrawal of Tambuwall’s security, these conducts amount to self-help. As many have correctly argued, President Goodluck Jonathan bears responsibility for the actions of the police, including the IGP.

    Unfortunately, in reaction to the unlawful barricade of the gates of the National Assembly, which appeared to have been targeted primarily at preventing the Honourable Speaker, Aminu Tambuwall, from gaining access to the House, some notable opposition lawmakers, clambered over the gates of the national assembly, to forcefully gain access to the chambers. Without gainsaying, such conduct is disgraceful, and also a resort to self-help. As things stand, two principal arms of the democratic tripod, the legislature and the executive, seems to have resolved that self-help, is the surest way to gain an upper hand, in their desperate contest for power. This is a recipe for constitutional breakdown.

    As held by the Supreme Court, per Justice Obaseki (rtd), in Governor of Lagos state v Ojukwu (1986) 1 NWLR Pt. 312, at p. 636: “In the area where rule of law operates, the rule of self-help by force is abandoned. Nigeria being one of the countries in the world, even in the third world, which proclaims loudly to follow the rule of law, there is no room for the rule of self-help by force to operate”. Again in Agbai v Okagbue (1991) 7 NMLR Pt 204 at p. 417, Nwokedi JSC (rtd) held: “Self-help by itself, in circumstances such as this, is a prmitive remedy capable of causing a breach of the peace. If the respondent had resisted the invasion of the defendants or himself applied self-help … there must probably have been a breach of the peace, the magnitude of which no one may conjecture”.

    For the avoidance of doubt, the combatants and those sympathetic to their unlawful conducts, should examine the adroit comments of learned Justice Godwin Adolphus Karibi-Whyte, in a paper titled, “The Relevance of the Judiciary in the Polity in Historical Perspective”, quoted by Ese Malami, learned author, in his book “The Constitutional Law” at page 27; that: “A constitution is incontestably a legal document and it is the fons et erigo of all rights within the polity… By its very nature and composition, this country will prefer a written constitution which will spell out the suitable political, economic and legal arrangment for its peole. Such a document will constitute the fons et origo of the exercise of powers, the enjoyments of rights, discharge of obligations … The powers of government in a democratic state governed under a written constitution are entirely expressed in the constitution. Similarly expressed are their rights and duties and the limitations of the organs of government…. The purpose is to subject the government to the laws under the constitution. Constituional government is government by law”.

    Unfortunately IGP Suleiman Abba, precides over a police, whose reputation as an unbiased national institution, is in tatters, as far as a significant portion of the Nigerian public, is concerned. Regrettably also, Speaker Aminu Tambuwall presides over a House of Representatives, whose reputation as diligent law makers, is assailed by unpatriotic compromises and corruption, in the eyes of a significant portion of the public. In essence, the abuse and unbridled context for influence and power, between the legislature and the executive, is somewhat akin to a context between brigands, as far as a critical segment of the Nigeria public, is concerned.

    The recent tirade by former President Olusegun Obasanjo, which this writer substantially agree with, impugning the intergrity of the national leadership, particulalry the national assembly with respect to the unconstituional constituency project, is a further confirmation of the abuse of power by public officials, across the board. Such acts of brigandry in the exercise of public power, becomes even more dangerous, when there is resort to self-help, by critical state actors.

     

     

     

  • Looking back and looking forward

    Looking back and looking forward

    This week as the unhinged Jonathan administration finally slipped its rational mooring with the armed invasion of the National Assembly, Nigerians must now brace themselves for the worst imaginable political catastrophe. There is a chilling feeling of Déjà vu abroad. The pictures are all too reminiscent of the 1962 bedlam in the Western Region House of Assembly. But while one event may resemble another distant event, you cannot step into the same river twice.

    It beggars belief that there are some of our compatriots who are justifying and defending this wanton desecration of a very critical state institution. Patriotism is truly the refuge of scoundrels. This columnist is often amused when our ersatz patriots and emergency nationalists mount the rooftop to proclaim their love for the nation and its presiding eminence. Given the battles some of us have fought for this country, both against military and civilian despots, their delusional nuisance ought to be a source of wry bemusement. But sometimes, the joke is carried too far.

    When many of us were battling to revalidate Jonathan’s legitimate claims to the presidency in the face of a desperate conspiracy by a feudal cabal, he had no ambassadors then. They were still in the diplomatic crèche for hustlers. Or more likely, they were studying the game as usual to see which way the gravy train was heading. But now that they have captured Goodluck, turning him into an ethnic and sub-regional president, it is good luck to all of them.

    As part of a constant reality check, this column often takes a retrospective glance at the immediate past. The result can be sobering and profoundly therapeutic. It is an elixir for the soul in depressing and degrading times. You are aware that when everything has ended in an absolute disaster, little is worth salvaging in the eternal cycle of political stupidity. You can then be reconciled to reality under duress, apologies to Fredric Jameson, the great American literary theorist.

    If Jonathan fails, it will not be from want of initial support from vital segments of the Nigerian civil and political society. It will be due entirely to his fundamental flaws of character. In the end, character is fate, as no one can escape the implacable consequences of their foibles. As the Greeks will say, call no man lucky until that day that he carries his luck to the grave.

    As it is at the moment, nothing can be expected from Jonathan in terms of the fundamental political re-engineering of this structurally disfigured country; nothing in terms of a visionary developmental blueprint and nothing in terms of moving the nation away from endemic political paralysis. Once again, the nation walks the path of thunder.

    In their tokenist trifling with harsh and bitter reality, Jonathan’s supporters may continue to point at kilometres of road constructed, stadia built, old rail wagons refurbished and new universities opened, forgetting that these are all ad hoc projects without any holistic integrative structure. In any case, even a third rate local government chairman with the same funding will not be jubilant about this.

    With the benefit of hindsight, the Jonathan presidency represents the greatest frittering away of historic opportunities and possibilities for this nation. No other civilian ruler in the history of the country could be said to have acceded to power with such massive goodwill and a pan-Nigerian groundswell of hope and optimism. But in the end, no man can give what he doesn’t have. To have invested such hopes in the first instance in an untried and untested fellow is a prime example of the collective delusion and daydreaming to which Nigerians are particularly prone.

    The Jonathan presidency has become a historic albatross for the nation. But like a misbegotten child mounted on its mother’s back and with the feet grating on the floor at the same time, it will require considerable tact and adroitness to set down if it is not to bring mother and child crashing to the ground.

    This latest executive tragedy will not stop Nigerians from dreaming. It will not stop us from imagining a greater tomorrow in which this formidably gifted nation will take its rightful place in the comity of great nations. That greater tomorrow may appear like a forlorn dream in the distressing circumstances of the moment. But all great human achievements are products of imaginary projections. Nothing worthwhile can be achieved without visionary dreaming.

    This morning, we republish a piece published three and a half years ago in 2011 when Goodluck Jonathan first acceded to the Nigerian presidency on his own steam. Our expectations have not been met and certain things have since happened to the fabled Nigerian military. The reader is invited to take an intellectual excursion to our immediate past with the columnist.

  • Jonathan’s Nigeria

    Jonathan’s Nigeria

    A country’ s frightening descent into banana republic

    One question that I have always remembered most times when I stumble on anything on the French Revolution was that asked by my European History teacher in my Higher School Certificate (HSC) days at the Federal School of Arts and Science, Ondo: “How did the French Revolution beget the dictatorship of Napoleon Bonaparte”? I guess someday, some students of Nigerian History would also be asked: “How did a potentially great Nigeria beget the serial incompetent and corrupt regimes hat brought it to this sorry pass”?

    It was clear immediately the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Mr. Aminu Tambuwal, dumped the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) for the All Progressives Congress (APC) on October 28 that the PDP would not take it kindly. I had said then that the party would resort to crude and primitive tactics instead of coming up with civilised means of settling scores, if any.

    In essence, the police take-over of the  National Assembly on Thursday was quite predictable. Discerning observers of the country’s political situation knew the day would not go without incident. President Goodluck Jonathan had written to the National Assembly for extension of the state of emergency in Borno, Yobe and Adamawa states. If that had been granted, it would be the fourth such extension and no one needs to be reminded that the emergency is not working. If more than 200 school girls could be abducted from their school in Chibok in spite of emergency; if bombs could be exploding in motor parks and other public places, including schools even in the daytime in spite of emergency, we need no one to tell us that the emergency has failed. And, as the House of Representatives noted, if you are using a particular strategy that is not working, you restrategise. There is no evidence that the government has done or is now prepared to do things differently. In the terror war as in other spheres of life, it has been tall in words but abysmally short in action.

    Ordinarily, one would have condemned the action of the House of Representatives members who climbed the iron fence at the National Assembly to make their way into the chamber. But then, that would not be fair because their action only resonates with what the ruling party has been doing and which the presidency has pretended not to see. Impunity is only begetting impunity. The most recent example is Ekiti State where seven lawmakers hired two unknown quantities to make nine, to ‘impeach’ the speaker. The same police force headed by Mr. Suleiman Abba that provided cover for those who perpetrated the show of shame in Ekiti said it had to move in to prevent a breakdown of law and order at the National Assembly. It further claimed that Mr. Tambuwal came to the assembly complex with thugs. Much as they would have to provide evidence of this, the question to ask Mr. Abba is whether he had expected Mr. Tambuwal to be walking all alone when he, Abba, had withdrawn his security details illegally?

    Weeks have passed and Mr. Abba is yet to restore the security details because, in his view, Tambuwal has ceased to be the Speaker on account of his defection. Obviously, Mr. Abba is not aware that Governor Segun Mimiko of Ondo State and the speaker of the state house of assembly also defected from the Labour Party (LP) to the PDP, and none has relinquished his or her official position; none has lost any of the rights and privileges attached to their respective offices. Should the same law that binds the masquerade not be binding on the women in purdah, that is assuming Mr. Abba is in a position to say the action was illegal? Haba, Mr. Abba!  The IGP told journalists after a meeting with Vice President Namadi Sambo  over the sad incident on Friday that: “Somebody was removing road blocks mounted by police, we have never seen this kind of thing in the whole world”. But he did not tell us where else in the civilised world the police are used for partisan purposes like the Nigeria Police Force. The police, now an extension of the PDP, and like the ruling party, are now the litigant, the prosecutor, the judge and the law enforcer. Clearly, this presidency is several centuries late in coming. Clearly too, IGP Abba does not belong to this age.

    But what all we have been seeing point at is that the Jonathan presidency is bare without the country’s security forces. Indeed, one would not be wrong to say that even the security agencies see themselves more as the president’s and his party’s security agencies rather than those of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.

    But things cannot continue this way for long, with democracy now being endangered by people who contributed nothing to the struggle for it. This should not be surprising though because you cannot value what you did not labour for. Unfortunately, it is the same people who were nowhere to be found during the struggle for the return of democracy that have cornered the chunk of the spoils of the bitter struggles that brought democracy back in 1999.

    However, it is instructive to point out that things were not this bad in 1983 when Alhaji Shehu Shagari and his cohorts were rendered jobless. Sadly, we appear to be following the same trajectory. When in the Second Republic the (now late) Chief Obafemi Awolowo said our economy was collapsing, the then ruling National Party of Nigeria (NPN), which I consider the PDP its offshoot, said there was nothing like that only to come out with what it called Economic Stabilisation Act (1982) which spelt out some austerity measures some months later. The problem then was oil glut which brought crude oil prices to rock bottom levels. About thirty-two years later, we are back to square one. Crude prices are going down again. And, after living in self-denial for months, the Federal Government came up with its own version of austerity measures. Just as in the Second Republic, those who saw the trend coming and warned earlier were called names, with Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, the country’s finance minister saying the country was not broke but that it only had cash flow problems.

    This is why one can understand US President Harry Truman who in frustration demanded for a one-handed economist. “Give me a one-handed economist” he said, adding “All my economists say, ‘on the one hand…on the other’”. For God’s sake, what is cash flow problem? If the cash is there, why would it not ‘flow’? Instead of sitting down to address the looming danger which has eventually stared us all in the face, they kept assuring there was no cause for alarm. Incidentally, the same Okonjo-Iweala is coordinating minister for the economy. Apparently she was so chosen because of her Bretton Woods background, which may not necessarily be useful in our kind of situation as a developing country. A President Truman would by now be shopping for her replacement.

    Regrettably, not President Jonathan because, just as Nigeria does not require an Okonjo-Iweala kind of finance minister at this point, the country’s problems transcend a presidency that is applying analogue solutions (brute force, illegalities, etc.) to digital problems. The end-time signs of the Second Republic are already manifesting: bad economy, crippling corruption, crass incompetence in high places and, to crown it all, using the security agencies as crutches to sustain a corrupt and inept government. Where did Alhaji Shagari end despite unleashing the kill and go on Nigerians?

    Perhaps never in the history of mankind has the goodluck of one man become the albatross of millions of fellow citizens. A president who has spent over four years in office cumulatively does not have to be as anxious for reelection as President Jonathan is to the point of intimidating everyone considered a hindrance to this importunate ambition. If the president had worked hard in the right direction, what should be speaking for him now are his achievements. He should be telling Nigerians not just the amount of megawatts of electricity he has added to what he met on ground but how much of it is available to them. Years after he said we should be ready to dash out our generators, we are still importing more. The president should show Nigerians the dent he has made on unemployment; he should tell them what the exchange rate was when he took over and what it is now. Even on his basic responsibility of security of lives and property, he is a monumental failure. That is why, like an old woman who is never at ease when dry bones are mentioned in a proverb, President Jonathan has become so intolerant of those who think he does not deserve a second term. And that is why he is unleashing the police and sometimes soldiers on them, even as the soldiers are unable to grapple with their basic responsibility of defending the country’s territorial integrity.

    We wobbled and fumbled to this sorry pass because we failed to protest against little impunities like the ones the PDP is daily perpetrating now. The danger, however, is that, four more years in the hands of this government, the question that a great historian asked about Ghana Empire would be relevant to Nigeria’s situation: “Despite its opulence, greatness and wealth, by 1240 A.D., Ghana Empire was no more. The question now is: What caused such an inglorious fall of such a glorious empire”?

  • National Assembly’s workers protest over non-payment of October salaries

    National Assembly’s workers protest over non-payment of October salaries

    NATIONAL Assembly’s workers under the aegis of Parliamentary Staff Association of Nigeria (PASAN) protested yesterday, alleging non-payment of their October’s salaries.

    The protest, it was learnt yesterday, was informed by the Presidency’s failure to release the third quarter allocations of the National Assembly.

    It was also gathered yesterday that the allowances and October salaries of senators and members of the House of Representatives and their legislative aides were affected by the pending allocation.

    This prompted a protest by the workers, who chanted solidarity songs yesterday as senators resumed for plenary session.

    The Vice Chairman, Caretaker Committee of PASAN, Stella Nwene, gave a notice of the protest through a letter dated November 4.

    The association also sent an internal notice to the workers through its Publicity Secretary, Godwin Kyepso, threatening to ground legislative activities at the National Assembly.

    But the protest led to the arrest and detention of five legislative workers by the Police.

    They were detained and asked to write statements.

    The Nation learnt that the leadership of the National Assembly met the Presidency over the issue with Aso Rock offering to remit 60 per cent of the pending allocation.

    The Assembly’s leadership was said to have rejected the offer, saying it was either 100 per cent or nothing.

    Though the delay in the payment of allowances and salaries came against the background of a revenue shortfall due to falling oil prices, some Assembly workers believed that the delay might be “because of the defection of the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Aminu Tambuwal, from the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) to the All Progressives Congress (APC).”

    One of the workers, who spoke under anonymity, said: “You can imagine the coincidence of non-payment of salaries and allowances of the legislators, who are preparing for re-election in 2015 and the recent crisis caused by the defection of the Speaker.

    “It is painful to know that the meagre money being paid to workers is being delayed despite the Minister of Finance’s claims that Nigeria is not broke. So, what is happening?”

    But some of the workers have condemned the action of the police, particular what they described as “the inhuman treatment” meted out against the arrested workers.

    A security operative, who declined to be named, said the police authorities met for hours with some of those arrested, impressing it on them to suspend the planned protest, pending the conclusion of negotiations.

    He said it was, therefore, surprising that the leaders of the workers went ahead with the protest, which, he claimed, might have been hijacked by unknown persons, “if it was not halted by the police”.

    According to him, those being held are helping the police with their investigation.

  • Union petitions SGF, National Assembly over NTDC’s DG

    Union petitions SGF, National Assembly over NTDC’s DG

    THE Amalgamated Union of Public Service Corporations, Civil Service Technical and Recreational Services Employees (AUPCTRE) has petitioned the Secretary to the Government of the Federation and the National Assembly, asking for a probe into the activities of the Director-General (DG) of the Nigeria Tourism Development Corporation (NTDC), Sally Mbanefo, following alleged administrative lapses.

    The petition, which was also sent to the Office of the Head of the Civil Service of the Federation (OHCSF), alleged that the NTDC is derailing from its vision and ought to be checked.

    It accused the DG of administering the corporation through text messages.

    But a top official of NTDC said the petition was baseless and a desperate bid to undermine the “growing achievements and international acceptance of Mbanefo.”

    Titled “Operation Save NTDC,” the union’s petition by its Secretary for the Federal Capital Territory Council (FCT), Comrade Remi Adediji, alleged lapses in the administration style of the DG.

    The petition reads in part: “The DG’s official medium of communication is through text messages, which make accountability or referral difficult, especially on decisions reached.

    “This makes files to pile up at her office without being treated. This is a sign of pretence and lack of working experience.

    “According to report from the corporation, the DG has replaced management meetings with Executive Committee meeting, whereby she handpicks people without consideration to the statutory management team.

    “The zonal offices are being starved of funds, relegated to the background and used as punishment site for ‘uncooperative staff’.

    “There are also issues of staff being forced to work against the establishment rule. The provisions of the Public Service Rule on annual leave, maternity leave, sick leave, which are staff rights, are breached with impunity because she considers them a privilege.”

    The union also alleged that the DG said she might not be coming to the office regularly because of the campaign of President Goodluck Jonathan for next year’s presidential election.

     ”From the look of things, it seems the DG has no time for the administration of the corporation. She informed her management sometimes that she is now the coordinator of Strategy and Campaign for the President, hence she will not be regular in the office”, the union added.

    The petition stated that despite the fact that Mbanefo had been in office for close to two years, she “is yet to acquaint the staff of the corporation with her vision and mission for the organisation”.

    “Most of the international fairs meant to showcase the image and marketing of the country’s tourism products are either cancelled or attended by her and her consultants, who she brought, who we believe are not better than the staff of the NTDC by all standards”, it stated.

  • With 774 autonomous LGs, states may become superfluous

    With 774 autonomous LGs, states may become superfluous

    If governors fail to release funds meant to be used by local governments, the response should not be turning this integral part of state governance into an autonomous level.

    If the many problems besetting our nation-state, one that is often forgotten is proclivity on the part of those in charge of governance to deflect attention from real issues when the need for rational debate is urgent. When the National Assembly initiated about three years ago one-day consultation with constituents from the six geopolitical zones on aspects of the 1999 Constitution they would recommend for amendment, citizens and civil society shouted foul, arguing that a constitution crafted by military dictators ought to require full consultation with citizens. But the lawmakers who saw (and still see) themselves as embodiment of the country’s sovereignty thought and acted otherwise, by floating perfunctory consultations in six cities with individuals who could afford to travel to such cities. The response of labour unions and other civic society organisations to the latest list of amendments from both legislative houses in Abuja, shows if anything, that the lawmakers are thinking alone and perhaps solely for the sake of the political class.

    On his own side, President Jonathan organised a national conference to discuss how to re-launch the Nigerian union. The conference also came up with several recommendations. Optimists about the outcome of the conference called on the president to implement their recommendations. In response to such optimists, President Jonathan established a special task force to move the recommendations to the next level. It is not clear if the recommendations had been sent formally to the national assembly, but the recent amendments approved by the national assembly indicate that the lawmakers have not paid any attention to the outcome of the national conference. If it has taken the national assembly about three years to agree on amendments to be sent to state assemblies for ratification or rejection, it is right to speculate that recommendations from the national conference are more likely, than not, to be kept in view for a long time, thus proving critics of the conference right on their view that no gain was likely to come out of a national conference convened a few months to national elections.

    It is conceivable that conference delegates and citizens in support of the conference are already getting ready to call national assembly members to order for not giving a thought to conference recommendations which are already in the public domain. However, it is instructive that labour groups have lost no time in protesting against two of the amendments from the lawmakers: closing the door to national minimum wage legislation and giving autonomy to local governments. In case Abuja is too distant for federal legislators to hear the complaints of labour leaders, state house assemblies need to heed the complaints of labour organisations on these two issues. Labour’s observation that these two amendments do not appear to have grown from holistic thinking deserves more attention in today’s column, before the issues get swept off the radar by campaign jingles.

    Part of the debate in the legislature on national wages is that federalism should allow states to determine how much they want to pay workers, putting into consideration such factors as differences in cost of living in the various states; each state’s capacity to pay, etc. Having a national minimum wage does not preclude states from adopting different wage levels. What is missing in the national assembly’s argument is the desirability of a national minimum wage in a country with an economy that is integrated to the point that some citizens work in one state and live in another. Wages and pension benefits may be on the concurrent list, but there ought to be some space for the national assembly to legislate on minimum wage level, below which no state may go in terms of emoluments to workers in the country but which any state may exceed should its economic fortunes allow.

    With respect to local governments, it is amazing how a civilian government can become an instrument of further militarisation of the polity. Apart from the fact that most countries of the world recognise that local governments are political units of states, no federal system on the globe gives the local government, country, borough, and other names for this sub-national level of government a status that makes it autonomous of the state of which it is a unit. It was military manipulators of the polity that created the concept of local government as third tier of government. It is also instructive that this was done principally with a view to pass funds from petroleum revenue to local governments. It was the concept of local government as a source of funds for local leaders that also dictated the naming of local governments in the 1999 Constitution, to the extent that local governments created after 1999 are not eligible for funding from the federation account. Lagos State is a good example of the limit put on local government creation on account of funds from the federation account.

    One argument prevalent at the national assembly about local government is the view that governors under the present dispensation are interfering with the funds allocated to the local government. Recommending autonomy for local governments is reminiscent of the syndrome at work when WAEC was believed by government leaders to be failing in its charge. NECO was created to do the same job as WAEC. If governors fail to release funds meant to be used by local governments, the response should not be turning this integral part of state governance into an autonomous level. Governors who withhold funds meant for local governments from them should be brought to book for violating the rights of local governments. Removing the Immunity provision from the constitution would have been enough to make erring governors act in compliance with the laws.

    Without realising it, there are more dangers for integrated development at the state level if local governments are made autonomous of states. What the national assembly has recommended is formalisation of the 774 local governments created under military rule as mini states. This recommendation has the capacity to undermine states’ control over their development while increasing dependence of local governments on the federal government. The thinking at the national conference on this matter was superior to that of the national assembly: local governments should not be separated from the states that house them in economic and political terms, if integrated development is to thrive at the state level. However, the bug of manna from the federation account was at work at the conference when it still left the issue of direct funding of local government from the federation account intact. Local governments are units of the state and need not be funded separately.

    It is an irony that at a time that revenue is dwindling to the extent that the federal government is finding it hard to release states’ shares of the federation account to them as and when due (on account of decrease in revenue flowing to the federation account from petroleum, the nation’s largest crop), the national assembly is showing more enthusiasm about turning 774 local governments into self-contained mini states.  Now that federal lawmakers have shown their preference on how to achieve integrated development at the subnational level,state legislators should not pay more attention to the wishes of existing and would-be local government chairpersons at the expense of ensuring coordinated development at the state level. The standard practice in other parts of the world (federal and unitary systems) is about two tiers of government. The three-tier system in Nigeria is an aberration foisted on the polity by military dictators. State legislators need to consult fully with citizens at the grassroots as to their preference on this matter.

  • ‘Our grievances with Bayelsa federal lawmakers’

    The day of reckoning has come. It is now the turn of the downtrodden, the rich and the mighty who make up the constituencies and wards in Bayelsa State to decide the fate of their elected representatives.

    The constituents have rolled out their scales to weigh the performances and achievements of persons they gave their mandates some years ago to fight for their collective interests at the National Assembly.

    But the scaling results seem unsatisfactory to the power owners, the constituents whom sovereignty belongs.

    Elders and leaders of the three senatorial districts that make up the state had at different separate enlarged meetings taken collective decisions that appeared to have foreclosed the possibility of the federal lawmakers to return to their seats in 2015.

    Unless the decision which zoned the seats out of the reach of incumbent lawmakers are reversed, the legislators are not even fit to stand for primary elections on the platform of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in 2015. They can, however, seek to retain their positions in another political party possibly the All Progressive Congress (APC).

    Already, some heavyweights who are believed to have the blessings of major power brokers in the state are rising to challenge the lawmakers. The first to indicate a senatorial interest is the Secretary, South-South Peoples Assembly (SSPA), Dr. Ayakeme Whiskey.

    Whisky, who is one of the board members of the Federal Capital Development Authority (FCDA), is seeking to occupy the seat of the Bayelsa West Senatorial District at the Senate. The senatorial district is made up of Ekeremor and Sagbama local government areas.

    He is up against Senator Heineken Lokpobiri, who hails from Ekeremor. While Lokpobiri represents the district in the upper legislative house; Dr. Stella Dorgu, who is from Sagbama, represents Sagbama/Ekeremor in the House of Representatives.  Lokpobiri is serving his second term in the Senate while Dorgu, who replaced Governor Seriake Dickson, when the former became governor, is doing her first term.

    Recently, the stakeholders in the district had zoned the senatorial seat to Sagbama and the House of Representatives position to Ekeremor. The zoning which was kicked against by the supporters of Lokpobiri has become a big threat to the third term ambition of the senator.

    The supporters of Lokpobiri had argued that the decision of the PDP elders was against performance and legislative experience. According to them the state deserved to have ranking senators and Lokpobiri should be reelected in 2015 to fill the void.

    Favoured by the zoning, Whisky, who spoke to the Niger Delta Report, thinks otherwise. Whisky who was also a former commissioner in the state said beyond zoning, the incumbent lawmakers have failed to give their constituencies effective representation.

    He said:  “As far as I am concerned, our democratic experiment is still at infancy. It has not matured to a stage where somebody will say we want ranking senator. Ranking should be a product of service to the people you represent.

    “Ranking should not become an issue only when you feel that by going to the Senate two, three times, you will have the opportunity of being given highly valued House position. It should take more than that.

    “If the people you represent see evidence of effective representation, they feel being carried along at every point in time, they share in a sense of belonging to the National Assembly, it should be voluntary position on their part to say our son has done well, let him go.

    “To that extent, I fully subscribe to the decision of the senatorial party leadership that Sagbama Local Government, which started representation at Senate for eight years and relinquished that to Ekeremor, and Ekeremor having made eight years, the office of the Senate should now be zoned to Sagbama.

    “I fully subscribe to it. Those who want to go three, four times should be a product of people’s consensus agreement and not because they want it.”

    Whisky, who hails from Bolu-Orua, a community that shares boundary with the hometown of Governor Dickson’s Toru-Orua in Sagbama further identified the flaws of the incumbent federal lawmakers from the state.

    He said: “I am not coming out because it is zoned to Sagbama. Even if party leadership had not come up with the decision to zone the Senate to Sagbama, I would have still indicated interest. I am one of those that believe that the people to whom sovereignty belongs have not been effectively carried along.

    “Representation is beyond getting up to speak in the hallowed chambers. The democracy we practice is called representative democracy. How many times have the people of Bayelsa been involved by their representatives in defining laws, in being educated on the various bills?

    “In advance democracies, I stand to be corrected, representatives are every now and then being in touch with their people. If any substantive law is in the offing to be enacted, they go back to their people.

    “Now the other argument people will propose is that there is always public hearing. How many of us from Sagbama-Ekeremor have the means to go to Abuja to attend public hearing on proposed bills? I think part of the responsibility of those who aspire to represent us is to come back home to consult their people.

    “For instance, the entire Niger Delta area and Bayelsa in particular, our main resource here is oil. Now a bill as sensitive as Petroleum Industry Bill was being introduced, how many people of my senatorial district and how many people of other senatorial districts were briefed by our senators and House of Rep members on the fundamentals of the PIB?

    “They will say there was public hearing, but how many people have the capacity to go to Abuja for public hearing? These are the fundamentals. It is not just an issue to say that the senatorial leadership of the party had zoned the Senate to Sagbama. I as a person feel that there are fundamental flaws in representation and I would ordinarily have come up to challenge the status quo.

    “Even while I was a commissioner here, we brought up a policy called bottom-up approach in budgeting. A good representative should be able to come back home in a pre-budgeting season, gather stakeholders of their constituencies and discuss issues that could be included in the budget.

    “After discussing the issues and demands, you should be able to prioritise the demands and see how many of the demands you can fix in the various budgets. It is not just merely constituency projects.

    “We know that constituency project is the euphemism to lining the pockets of legislators. Representatives are only interested in constituency projects and they become the contractors of the projects and line their pockets.”

    On why he wanted to abandon a South-South regional leadership for the Senate, he said: “South-South Peoples Assembly is a pressure group. You can at best place the issues affecting your people before relevant authorities and agencies.

    “You cannot define the solution. As the Secretary of the assembly for the past eight years, I have become very conversant with the issues that border, militate and concern the people of South-South.

    “Secretary of Southsouth can only afford me the rights and privileges of making a noise and how that noise will be translated to reality can only become possible if I am in the Senate”.

  • National Assembly creates five directorates

    National Assembly creates five directorates

    The National Assembly announced yesterday the establishment of five directorates.

    The Clerk of the National Assembly, Salisu Abubakar Maikasuwa, who spoke in a statement, said the  directorates followed President Goodluck Jonathan’s assent to the National Assembly Service Commission Act, 2014.

    Maikasuwa said the National Assembly Service Commission, in exercise of its powers as provided in Section 6(b) vii of the National Assembly Service Act, 2014 approved the establishment and appointment of the five directorates and secretaries.

    He listed the directorates as Directorate of Corporate Affairs, to be headed by Alhaji Suleiman Mohammed, Directorate of Legal Services, to be headed by Mr. Adem Daniel Tongu, Directorate of Procurement, Estate and Works, to be headed by Mr. Adelami Owolabi Olayide, Directorate of Finance and Accounts to be headed by Alhaji Bukoye Lasisi and Directorate of Common Services to be headed by Dr. Moma Efretuei.

    He said the appointments are made in recognition of the individual hard work, dedication to duty and responsible conduct of the appointees since joining the service.

  • Ex-militants to storm National Assembly today over welfare

    Former militants from the Justice Camp in the Niger Delta have threatened to shut down legislative and all other activities today at the National Assembly complex in Abuja.

    The aggrieved ex-militants, who claimed to have made other peaceful entreaties for Federal Government’s attention to their plight, said theyadopted the protest approach because their camp had been sidelined by the Amnesty Office in the Presidency.

    They said the officce  refused to document and integrate them into the third phase of the amnesty programme.

    Addressing reporters at the weekend in Ughelli, Ughelli North Local Government Area of Delta State, General David Owhegbe, the State Chairman of the Justice Camp, alleged that his members had been deliberately excluded from benefitting from the programme.

    He described the development as a daylight robbery.

    Owhegbe said counsel to the former militant, A. Movie, in a letter about three months ago to the Special Assistant to the President on Niger Delta, Kingsley Kuku, regretted that the time they were promised for documentation and payment of stipends had expired.

    The letter reads: “On the proclamation of amnesty by the Federal Government, our clients, with a retinue of militants under their authority, voluntary submitted arms and ammunition under their control and management to Sector 1, Joint Task Force (JTF), at the Effurun Barracks, Delta State, recently.

    “Contrary to expectations, the express promise made to our clients that they would be paid stipends and documented at the slated period has elapsed and unfulfilled.

    “Note that the caption date – July 14, 2014 for amicable resolution of the issue raised in the said letter further briefed us to remind you and request for your urgent reply to the said letter within 30 days of the receipt of their letter and that, our clients’ modest demand; an urgent integration and documentation into the amnesty programme, like other ex-militants, who keep to the tenets of militancy renunciation be granted.

    “If the office of the amnesty fails or refuses to accede to our clients’ demands, then we will have no option than to institute legal action against you and federal government and also organize an unusual demonstration in every part of the Niger Delta region, beginning from Abuja, the Federal Capital Territory, to district the sitting of national legislators and others until our demands are met.”