These are indeed trying times for Nigerians who feel diminished by the resolve of our distinguished parliamentarians to bequeath their current values as acceptable standard for our youths. Already, the current 8th Senate with its leading lights such as senators Bukola Saraki, Dino Melaye, Ekweremadu, Abaribe and Bala Ibn Na’allah has been adjudged the worst in our nation’s history. Unfortunately, rather than try to prove those who have come to the sad conclusion that our nation has been hijacked by ruffians who freely deploy self-help tactics such as subterfuge, treachery, opportunism and blackmail, wrong, they have continued to reinforce such assertion.
And now as a ‘force majeure’, or as Melaye puts it, the ‘irremovable’ distinguished senators, literarily climbed the tree beyond the leaves last week when they openly threatened the survival of a democracy Nigeria achieved through the sacrifice of our heroes past. They openly boast of having the power to impeach and replace the acting President by one of their own all in the pursuit of their selfish interest.
First, the parliamentarians are at war with the acting President for criticizing their criminal act of padding the budget after the second reading. Second, they are enraged by the acting President’s claim that the presidency’s decision to retain Magu as acting chairman of EFCC despite Senate’s opposition is backed by the constitution. On both issues, the Senate was wrong.
First, public budgeting is the political tool with which government in power fulfills its electoral promises to the electorate and the major actor in budget preparation is the executive. The legislature debates, examines and authorizes spending of public revenue. To avoid any ambiguity, areas of joint cooperation include implementation, monitoring, evaluation and reporting. To protect the interest of their constituencies, the legislature, like all other actors such as NGOs, pressure groups and international donors, are expected to lobby the executive at the budget preparatory stage.
But what obtains in the last 16 years is padding of the budget in the name of constituency projects after second reading which under our law is a criminal act. To make matters worse, this was always done for selfish reasons. Last year, Abdul Mumin Jibrin, reacting to his removal as chairman of the appropriation committee following a claim he ‘unilaterally padded the 2016 budget to the tune of N4.1 billion to his Kiru/Bebeji federal constituency in Kano State, attributed his travails to his inability “to admit into the budget almost N30 billion personal requests from Mr. Speaker and the three other principal officers”. There is currently a pending petition before the UN against House Speaker Yakubu Dogara by SERAP claiming ‘removal of critical projects and replacement of such projects with constituency projects, not only undermined the fight against corruption in the country, but also exacerbated extreme poverty’ of the same people on whose behalf Dogara and his House members pretended to fight.
We also now know that about N350billion appropriated by the National Assembly in respect of about 2,516 projects spread across the country in the last five years never took off even after full payment had been made. On July 17, 2016, The Nation in a report titled “Constituency Projects – a ritual of monumental waste” summarized the result of a survey of 436 projects spread across 16 states of the federation by a Civic Technology Organisation-BudgIT. It listed on pages 9, 10 and 11, 211 projects such as water bore-holes, rural electricity and roads projects and primary health centres designed to alleviate the suffering of the poor but abandoned across 16 states of the federation. Rather than prove the report wrong or apologise to the nation, our parliamentarians, determined to continue with the monumental waste are threatening to carry out a civilian coup.
Of course, the acting President also stands on a more solid ground in the case of Magu. If the parliamentarians’ opposition to Magu’s confirmation was not driven by self-interest as a result of Magu’s insistence on continuing with the investigation and prosecution of about 15 members of the Senate over financial malfeasance, the appropriate response would have been to challenge the President’s position in court rather than a threat to impeach and replace him with one of their own.
To consolidate their position, those who insist our nation has been taken over by tough guys have also called our attention to the activities of our lawmakers since the inauguration of the 8th Senate on July 9, 2015. They have challenged us to find appropriate description for the action of someone who admitted that in order to secure his current position, he outwitted his fellow 51 APC elected senators by hiding inside a car in front of the Senate chambers while his colleagues were at a meeting with the President in another venue only to sneak into the Senate chambers to be adopted Senate President by acclamation by 49 opposition senators who share his values.
They also cited the case of Ike Ekweremadu, his deputy who regaled Nigerians with the tales of how he planned with stalwarts of defeated PDP all through the night inside David Mark’s room to ‘literarily’ steal the office that by convention he had enjoyed for eight years rightly belongs to the ruling party with a majority?
And since it is said Nigerians suffer from collective amnesia, they have also reminded us of the Senate’s recent war against the Customs Comptroller General. Instead of addressing the issue of multi-million SUV bullet proof car imported and cleared with forged documents, the Senate in the words of Itse Sagay “think they have power and decided to be unjust, oppressive and dismiss the interest of this country with levity and contempt” by ordering the Customs Comptroller General to wear uniform like a school boy. It turned out after they were forced to institute an internal probe by public opinion, that the multi-million bullet-proof SUV vehicle cleared with forged papers to evade the tariff accruable to government indeed belongs to the Senate President who was cleared of any wrong doing on the ground that the new addition to his fleet was imported on his behalf by a third party.
They also reminded us of how Dino Melaye’s alleged false claim of being an alumni of Ahmadu Bello University (ABU) Zaria as well as that of many prestigious universities across the globe was resolved in his favour through a Senate internal probe that confirmed he at least obtained a third class degree from ABU Zaria.
Finally, to consolidate their otherwise unassailable position, our attention was turned to Ekweremadu’s last week foreclosure of the outcome of INEC ongoing Melaye’s recall exercise. He insisted the Senate has in its kitty a new law which will render the outcome an exercise in futility.
I am sure those who feel diminished by seizure of our country by ruffians understand no one can dare our all-powerful parliamentarians who are too quick to resort to tough guy self-help tactics like accusing ministers of “impinging on the privilege of the members of the National Assembly and inciting Nigerians against the parliament” for merely informing Nigerians of diversion of budgetary allocations from Lagos-Ibadan expressway and the 2nd Niger Bridge to accommodate controversial constituency projects such as state roads, street light and boreholes.
But much as it is difficult to checkmate our all-powerful tough guys, one thing they cannot stop Nigerians from doing is addressing them the way they are dressed.