That coup-is-still-possible quip, by Ike Ekweremadu, deputy Senate president (DSP), echoes one Yoruba saying: ”Omo yo tan, o npe baba re l’eranko!”
A brat, at the apex of his filial hubris, dismisses his doting parents as idiots! Surely, such surfeit munificence is nothing but supreme parental folly?
That fairly epitomizes this 8th Senate — indeed, the two chambers of the National Assembly. After gorging silly, from the ceaseless milk of the civil order, the prodigal, in cloud seven, now dreams military rule!
That about captures Ekweremadu’s gaffe.
Yet, there may be something spiritual about it all. To start with, Ekweremadu’s subsistence as DSP has nothing to do with the so-called “beauty of democracy”. Instead, it is the very ugly gargoyle of opportunism.
Bukola Saraki, desperate to sell his All Progressives Congress (APC) parliamentary mandate, to at all cost become Senate president, was clear-eyed about his perfidy. Even then, he needed a devil-may-care collaborator-opportunist.
Enter, Ike Ekweremadu, last-term legit DSP under David Mark but now willy-nilly DSP, procured by the rotten fruits of stolen goods! For where else does a minority party in parliament land the DSP?
One that scrambles to high office, by absolute dishonour, is spiritually fated to fatal mis-jives!
Still on honour, take a close look at the two captains of the executive: President Muhammadu Buhari and Vice President Yemi Osinbajo; and the National Assembly equivalent captains: Senate President Bukola Saraki and Speaker Yakubu Dogara.
In each bloc, one is Muslim, the other Christian. Yet, each group throws up diametrically opposed vibes — why? Personal conducts.
Call Buhari many names over, but that he is a thief, to gobble public money, is never going to wash. Tried and tested many times, his squeaky clean image and Spartan ways have held steady, in the midst of so much decadence among his contemporaries.
Vice President Osinbajo is rich — but not in money (still, by any standard, he’s no pauper) but in value.
Every dime he has earned — and that’s a good many — is from his sweat as a Law professor and active legal practitioner. In Lagos, his first port as a public servant, he left a trail of punishing devotion and high record of excellence. His sterling legal reforms, as Lagos attorney-general and Justice commissioner (1999-2007), now being adopted at the federal level and by other states, are living testimonies.
No wonder, the presidential duo strike the image of the straight-and-narrow, that elixir a decadent Nigeria needs to scale these trying times.
That contemporary Nigeria deliberately underplays these stellar traits shows how too far gone, from that narrow path to salvation, the Nigerian elite — particularly the so-called (wo)men of God — may have strayed.
But the National Assembly? The direct contrast: glum, free-for-all, celebrated decadence.
Saraki, the Senate president, has no conviction record. But his politics stinks to seven heavens. The soulless manner he sold his party’s birthright to DSP for personal profit, cutting the dishonourable PDP and its Ekweremadu a sickly slack, is brazen proof.
Long after the spoil of office is long putrefied in the belly, that treachery and twin opportunism would define the political profile of both.
And long after this 8th Senate is gone, its effete succumb to such perfidy would question its group essence, despite the presence, in the conclave, of a few well and truly decent (wo)men.
House Speaker Dogara appears placid on the surface. But with his reaction to “budget padding” allegations by Abdulmnmini Jibril, former chair of the House Appropriation Committee now languishing in suspension exile, he would appear as ruthless as they come.
Both the Senate and the House are unrepentantly yoked to turning their so-called house rules into some big whip, to thrash the Constitution on citizens’ rights. But can a conclave, by its rule, banish a member for a long spell, when that member, by law, represents a constituency?
Which one is supreme — the parliament’s right to maintaining discipline among its own ranks; or the Constitution’s diktat that every citizen must have representation?
That is one issue the courts should thrash out, for that core representation makes Parliament the first estate of the realm.
Yet, this 8th National Assembly has exalted group norm over the grund norm. Because that often negates its very essence, the result is perceived impunity inside its high walls. That translates into crass opacity, to citizens outside, who have a right to know.
Of course, such opacity breeds explosive scandals, the latest of which is Senator Shehu Sani’s sensational claim that every senator pockets N13.5 million a month, aside from other perks, in holy gravy!
A stunned Senate might just dispatch Sani to Golgotha, for infringing on its “privileges, integrity and rights”. No tears for Holy Shehu, Glorious and Conceited, who immaculately talks down on everyone! Still, that would be barring the gate when the stallion had galloped clear!
Indeed, unfazed institutional opacity breeds the many Senate escapades.
First, it tailors public laws to its private benefits, simply because it’s charged with that chore.
Then, it instals itself as the decadent alternative to the President’s war against corruption, with its running battles with EFCC’s Ibrahim Magu and Nigeria Customs’ Hameed Ali, two citizens, like Buhari, virtually killing themselves to deliver a better Nigeria.
With the executive calling its bluff on Magu, the Senate throws tantrums, decreeing itself AWOL from crucial confirmation duties. Yet, this is a job it pays itself at an obscene premium!
The other day, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) was even appealing to the Nigerian Senate to confirm some crucial Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) nominees! A thoroughly deluded Senate dubs it “protest”. But its political masters, we the people, call it unpardonable subversion that must be punished.
Besides, it’s March and this 8th National Assembly is still playing yo-yo with the 2018 budget. Is there loading a repeat of last year, when it switched votes from crucial roads nationwide, that would have given the economy a fillip, to useless constituency projects, for brazen personal egos?
Indeed, an opaque parliament is a blight on any democracy. No wonder, in its arrogance turned hubris, this National Assembly has installed itself champion of anything decadent; and virulent opposer of everything diligent. Sad!
It is from such free-for-all decadence that an Ekweremadu would practically call for military rule, in the very hallowed chambers of the Senate! Any further proof of how these characters have re-shaped the house in their hollow images?
Still, Ekweremadu is only a son, out of the too many children of perdition, plaguing the Nigerian Senate.
They are all beyond redemption. That is why, come 2019, they must all be swept clean, into political Siberia.
