The house boys are back to work

The Federal House of Representatives, after a long and almost unending battle on who to occupy prime leadership positions to serve as presiding officers of the House, seems to have settled for work now. But before you get it twisted, you must know that the work isn’t actually the real legislative assignment for which millions of Nigerians from across the geo-political zones of the country voted for the members of the House.

Their mandate is clear: deepen genuine representation on salient issues of national interest, contribute to good governance through sound legislation and be alive to oversight functions on government Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs).

But to the dismay of many a Nigerian, some parliamentarians, as members of various committees in the lower assembly, have displayed gross misplacement of priority. In place of their constitutional oversight functions, these ‘honourables’ have launched a ‘forensic investigation’ into the Nigeria National Petroleum Company’s (NNPC) Oil swap deals. And that seems to be a noble idea except that a number of agencies exists mainly for such duties. Sadly though, most of the investigations conducted in the past by the lower house haven’t yielded any positive result with direct impact on Nigerians.

Many of such investigations, in addition to public hearings, have been held in the past with little or nothing to show for them. Previously, the house has constituted different committees on varying oil and gas issues and the committees have produced reports from statements of hundreds of witnesses and about 2, 500 volumes of documents taken in evidence from both the regulators and top operators in the industry. Yet, those otherwise credit-worthy steps have been dogged with controversies and scandalous allegations. Of particular reference is the Farouk Lawan-led House of Representatives ad-hoc committee constituted to probe the subsidy regime in 2012. After what many Nigerians had thought would be a watershed in the country’s oil sector reforms, the entire nation was shocked by a scandalous revelation: the chief reformer had soiled his hands, or so it was alleged.

All was almost set when a major oil marketer, Femi Otedola publicly alleged that the chairman of the ad-hoc committee, Farouk Lawan, had demanded a $3m bribe from him. This claim was substantiated by an audio recording of their conversations.

Incidentally, the spokesman of the House of Representative at the time, Zakari Mohammed, who assured Nigerians that the House of Representatives would ensure the implementation of the report of the Lawan-led committee, when adopted, chairs the current ad-hoc committee on refined product exchange agreement / crude oil swap that is seeking for a new “forensic investigation” into the activities of an aspect of the oil industry and aiming to “expose corruption, inefficiency or waste in the operations of the SWAP agreement…” as said in a full page advertorial published in a national newspaper.

To me, it is actually sheer waste of precious legislative hours and taxpayers’ resources to embark on an endeavour that will amount to waste as the past undertakings have proven. Why should the House continue to delve on investigation if not for racketeering as believed in many quarters?

Not a few Nigerians believe that most of the hearings conducted by these various committees are smokescreens to negotiate kickback and to service the pecuniary desire of the committee members. Not surprisingly, some of these standing committees have become great money-spinners, albeit illegal ones, making them do-or-die pursuits for many legislators. Subsequently, many of the reports of such committees end up in the legislative archives or library (if there is anything of such in practical sense) or in the bin of history where they actually prepared it for.

Honestly, I do not see any sense in earmarking our scarce resources for a “forensic investigation” especially when it is already common knowledge that the Presidency in conjunction with the relevant state’s security agencies, which according to reliable reports, are in concert with foreign security operatives, has set out to unravel the fraud that went down in the name of the SWAP scheme and subsequently prosecute any individuals or organisations found to have defaulted.

It is most baffling that our legislators have taken needless journeys into the oily streams when the entities that have the genuine mandate to perform such duties are already at work. And we, ever-trusting Nigerians, are here yearning for life-changing legislations from our legislators.

By now, I suppose the House of Representatives should know that she cannot be trusted with any effort to examine either the downstream sector or the upstream sector of the Nigerian oil and gas industry. That is because her past attempts in similar direction did not yield any good or meaningful outcome. Instead, not only did such efforts failed woefully but they also brought shame and disrepute to the hollowed chamber. And that was after millions of taxpayers’ funds had been expended on sitting arrangements and all-what-not.

Seriously, it is high time we had a rethink and get the boys to the real and very crucial legislative works for which they were voted in the first instance, rather than the constitution of any self-profiting committee.