Seventh National Assembly betrayed Nigerians

IF the sole reproach of the lawmakers of the Seventh National Assembly 2011-2015 had been their sickening incompetence, their poor showing would have been almost bearable. 

But many of our federal parliamentarians were in part ignorant, mostly lazy, disreputable and irredeemably greedy and corrupt. No wonder that for four years, and 12 more before then, Nigerians had been left holding the short end of the stick, betrayed thoroughly by their own representatives who failed to deliver the benefits of democracy.

It is said that when a legislature is ineffective in carrying out its functions, society suffers. No veneer of respectability can cover the atrocious performance of the 109 senators and 360 members of the House of Representatives that ran the National Assembly from 2011 to 2015. Reports that it passed 108 bills and numerous (mostly ineffectual) motions prove this. The 108 bills passed were a mere 10.11 per cent of the total 1,068 brought to the floors of the parliament. An official report said 191 members did not sponsor a single bill in their four years at the House. At the Senate, only 67 bills were passed. Instructively, most of these bills were not signed into law by the President. Even then, what is the relevance of the bills passed into law to the well-being of the Nigerian people?

Typically, the lawmakers rounded off that era in a spectacular show of shame fit for theGuinness Book of World Records. The Senate, throwing decorum overboard on its final day, passed 46 bills in 10 minutes! It trashed its own rules stipulating three readings before a bill could be debated and passed. The senators did not set eyes on the laws they supposedly passed, simply approving them by a voice vote. They also passed amendments to the 1999 Constitution and attempted to browbeat the then outgoing President, Goodluck Jonathan, into signing it into law, and at a stage, threatened to override a presidential veto. Not to be outdone, the House of Representatives, on the last day of its sitting, finally passed the Petroleum Industry Bill. The passage was futile because there was no concurrence by the Senate. The same bill had been with the Parliament for four years without being treated with the urgency it deserved.

Everyone knew the Senate’s desperation to amend the constitution was driven by selfish interest as the amendments reportedly included provisions for generous terminal benefits for lawmakers. The absurdity of writing severance benefits for a tiny segment of the populace into the basic law escaped them. In their haste, they also forgot the elaborate provisions for amendment spelt out in the constitution.

Yet, the parliament received N600 billion in budgetary votes in these four years, translating to N5.56 billion per bill, a monumental price for gross under-performance. A former Central Bank of Nigeria governor once cried out that the over N150 billion spent on the parliament, a quarter of the total federal wage bill, was too large and should be cut. Like other critics, he was harassed. The latest figures published byThe Economist magazine of London show that Nigerian legislators earn the second highest pay worldwide, higher than what parliamentarians earn in Britain, Canada, Brazil, China, Russia, France, Italy and Brazil, the world’s richest countries. Defiantly, some, like former Senate President, David Mark, continue to insist on enjoying these perks, always quick to remind all that they are the “representatives of the people.”

Revered as the second Estate of the Realm, a parliament exists to make laws, act as a check on the executive and safeguard the people’s interest at all times. A high level of moral rectitude and competence is required in a modern democracy to effect this three-fold mandate of representation, legislation and parliamentary control; virtues lacking in a majority of those who found themselves in the parliament. The new government must engineer a new culture of service, rather than that of avarice and entitlement that had guided our parliamentarians.

So avaricious were they that, apart from their huge salaries, they contrived to vote millions for themselves, using all manner of tricks. They thoroughly corrupted governance, routinely extorting money from ministries, departments and agencies. Nasir el-Rufai exposed how senators demanded N50 million from him to secure his confirmation as minister in 2004. Instead of the usual parliamentary oversight taken for granted elsewhere, for our parliamentarians, it is a licence to routinely collect “welfare” from ministries, departments and agencies. We must no longer suffer serial folly and scandals from legislators.

There was Faroukgate, where a lawmaker is standing trial for allegedly collecting $620,000 bribe from a fuel subsidy beneficiary; there was Ihembegate, where another is facing yet another trial for allegedly collecting money for an aborted trip from the Securities and Exchange Commission. Budgetary legislation was also turned into sources of ill-gotten wealth for legislators as each MDA allegedly parts with money to get its spending plan approved. The lack of strong institutions and purposeful executive allowed the parliament to stall bills like the PIB and Railway Amendment Bill that would have triggered massive investments and created jobs.

Nelson Polsby, an American political scientist, has characterised the legislature as the “nerve ending” of the polity. He is right. Going forward, Nigerians must come to terms with the institutional weaknesses that saddled us with the impunity of lawmakers and make amends. There was, for instance, no one to enforce the constitutional provision that federal and state lawmakers must sit for not less than 181 days in a year. We had absentee legislators, who nonetheless, cornered so much of public resources. The new leadership should enforce the rules and demonstrate zero-tolerance for corruption.

Democracy cannot thrive where the population is docile and aloof. Civil society groups should step up their mobilisation and motivate the electorate to demand good governance and accountability from legislators at every level. The anti-corruption agencies should now be strengthened and well funded. An anti-graft war will neuter the atrocities and greed of lawmakers and other public officials. Officials, public and private, should stop giving lawmakers “welfare.” Nigerians should never again tolerate an indolent, rapacious and unaccountable parliament as the Seventh National Assembly.