Who will save national assembly from itself?

As the Second Estate of the Realm and a governance institution considered closer to the people, it is not unexpected for Nigeria’s National Assembly to be in the news. But it would have been soothing to the people as well as a welcome development were the nation’s legislators to be in the news due to the clash of ideas and intellectual discourses among members for the growth and development of the Nigerian society. The eight session of the legislative body in this dispensation is always in the news but for the wrong reasons.

Just a quick recap: When he was nominated as a minister by former President Olusegun Obasanjo and his name sent to the 6th Senate for screening, Mallam Nasiru el-Rufai accused the then Senate leadership of demanding a N45 million bribe (now a ridiculously low amount to be considered as bribe by our legislators) before he could be cleared. The senate kicked and threatened el-Rufai with fire and brimstone as a result of his accusation. But he was eventually confirmed because of some deft and placatory moves by his then principal president. Seething with anger and waiting strategically to extract their own ‘pound of flesh’ when he least expected, they found the opportunity in el-Rufai’s demolition (as the FCT Minister) of illegal structures in the Federal Capital Territory when they described the exercise as “over-reaching and callous” that could have been done better with “human face.”

So, when asked by reporters to comment on his condemnation by the senate leadership, the FCT minister retorted that “silence is the best answer for fools.” Not a few Nigerians thought then that the minister went too far in his choice of words to characterise the people’s representatives.

Fast forward to November 2016. As the keynote speaker of the first Akintola Williams annual lecture in Lagos, Chief Obasanjo (even when what he said was a typical case of the pot calling the kettle black) described the National Assembly as a “den of corruption” occupied by “unarmed robbers.” The former president, who then had recommended that Buhari’s anti-graft war in the judiciary be extended to the legislative arm of government, added that the corruption in Nigeria’s parliament “stinks to high heavens.”

Still referring to the present 8th national assembly, hear Obasanjo in his own words: “The national assembly cabal of today is worse than any cabal that anybody may find anywhere in our national governance system at any time. Members of the national assembly pay themselves allowances for staff and offices they do not have or maintain. Once you are a member, you are co-opted and your mouth is stuffed with rottenness and corruption that you cannot opt out.

The national assembly is a den of corruption by a gang of unarmed robbers. Most of them conduct themselves and believe that they are not answerable to anybody. They are blatant in their misbehavior, cavalier in their misconduct and arrogant in the misuse of parliamentary immunity as a shield against reprisals for their irresponsible acts of malfeasance and/or outright banditry.” What a characterization by one of the very leaders who helped in no small measure in turning them into monsters with voracious appetites for anything cash.

However, it must be stressed here that while there are men and women of honour and integrity in the nation’s legislative body (and I know personally a handful of them), their number is so infinitesimal to be considered significant as to sway how Nigerians see them as nothing but idiotic and thieving bunch. With the aforementioned, coupled with the fully established fact that the vast majority of Nigerians have never had such a collective low opinion of their legislators as they have of this current crop of lawmakers to the extent that they’re being disdained by the very people they claim to be representing, one would think they would always be reflective and sober when dealing with issues of national importance that calls attention to their legislative responsibility. Rather, the current crop of legislators in the national assembly is unarguably the most reckless, audacious with heaven-may-fall predisposition in the way they pursue their greed and self-interests.

The Vice President Prof. Yemi Osinbajo must have also found their egregious behavior so frustrating and unhealthy for national development that he publicly attributed the almost constant feud between the executive and legislature to the “greed and self-interests” of these members. Why a class of people who pride themselves as “Distinguished” and “Honourable” but are widely believed to be thieves would continue to dance in the public with young calves (in a manner of Yoruba speak) beggars belief.

Since it has probably been considered by Nigerians as an amoral institution of governance that is hopelessly devoid of the presence of mind to know when to say when, let alone possessing the discernment to leave bad enough alone, the motion for a “vote of no confidence” moved by the Leader of the House of Representatives, Femi Gbajabiamila on the Minister of Mines and Steel Development Dr. Kayode Fayemi and his deputy Bawa Bwari is another unfortunate testament that our legislators ( now derisively referred to as “legislooters”) are probably too far gone in their perfidiousness to recognize that Nigerians have had enough of their brazen and audacious thievery. But they will glibly remind us that what they’re trying to do is building “strong institutions.”

Nigerians were first made to believe that the “no confidence vote” emanated from the inability of the minister and his deputy to attend the House Sectoral Debate on Iron and Steel Sector on Thursday, March 1, 2018 despite the fact that the minister expressed his inability and that of his deputy to attend the debate in two separate letters to the House leadership. Following the announcement of the passage of this “vote of no confidence” contraption The Nation newspaper on Friday, March 2, 2018 reported that what really triggered the “no confidence vote” was not the minister’s inability to attend the House meeting but his refusal to accept an extra-budgetary allocation from the House (remember budget padding?) by which a whopping $500 million would be inserted into the ministry’s budget for the Ajaoluta Steel complex.

The report went further to say that the “House wanted to use the ministry to legitimize the appropriation of $500 million under the guise of resuscitating the Ajaokuta Steel Complex” when the complex “requires $1,049 billion to be fully on stream” in accordance with the ministry’s audit report presented to the House. And here’s the thing: the House wanted to share among themselves half of the amount required to operationalise the steel factory so that the country can significantly reduce its dependent on foreign steel and create thousands of employment for her people. If this isn’t the most unabashed “greed and self-interests” stretched to the limit, I don’t know what else is.

From the foregoing, it’s even a moot point to interrogate why the House not only rushed into passing a “no confidence vote” which is as worthless as how Nigerians see them, but also why Fayemi was picked on when several others had not bothered to honour their invitations in the past because they thought those invitations were not worth their time. One cannot help but wonder why these legislators are so brazen and reckless in their pursuit of avarice that they’re willing to swing the mace against anyone who refuses to dance to their tune and unwilling to accede to their pecuniary demands even if such a person operate outside their legislative purview. It is one thing for the leadership of the national assembly to have turned the legislature into a political garrison where every member must fall in line; hear no evil and see no evil. But it is quite another to be so audacious in their attempt to put the entire country in a straitjacket so that the House can run rampant and ride roughshod on the citizenry.

It may also be pointless to preach tact to the tactless and ring the bell of morality to the amoral, but what must be emphasized in this latest perfidy of the House of Representatives is that they picked the wrong candidate in the Buhari administration to legitimize the sleaze that has become their second nature because Fayemi’s honour, integrity and character—-which majority of the NASS members cannot recognize even if these virtues are sitting pretty in their so-called hallowed chambers, let alone come to terms with—-had been fully formed and mature before the minister stepped out of the shadows to offer his services to his country. Fayemi cannot compromise these values for anything.

The tactlessness that characterized the quick passage of the “no confidence vote” on Fayemi and Bwari should have made any image-conscious legislative body to be a lot more wary of making such an inglorious move in the first instance. That the real reason for this infamous motion was bound to come into the open sooner than later should have been enough disincentive to embark on such a worthless “no confidence vote” journey. But who cares about image when “greed and self-interests” are the twin motivating vices that drove the vast majority of them into the business of lawmaking in the first place. This is the crossroads at which Nigerians found themselves with their lawmakers.