44
THE NATION FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 25, 2011
POLITICS
Letter to Nigerian parliamentarians Dear Nigerians Lawmakers
P
ERMIT me to have this dialogue with you in an unusual way. It is the import of the subject matter that necessitated this unorthodox resolve. Historically, there is no doubt that the legislative arm of Nigeria has suffered regular and severe institutional assaults, disruptions, and annihilation by the successive military junta that forcefully took over the Nigerian state since the advent of military incursion into governance in 1966. The Nigerian legislative arm of government is usually the first casualty of army insurrection against the state. The usual maiden statements of the military rulers was always and forcefully to prohibit further sitting of the parliament. The first of such decrees was titled: Decree No.1, 1966 of the Constitution (Suspension and Modification) decree was promulgated by the Federal Military Government to ensure that their powers were unfettered. When the Senate of Babangida’s transition under the then Acting President Senator Ameh Ebute issued notice for the resumption of the senate in 1994, the core leaders of the senate were promptly arrested and detained. The military strongmen could not envisage a situation where their treasonable conducts could be challenged and pronounced illegal. Again, part of the military structure of governance is that the highest ruling body (Supreme Military Council/Armed Forces Ruling Council) is usually invested with both executive and legislative powers. In fact they also constitute the judiciary under some decrees. But there is no doubt that while the judiciary is even tolerated to some extent as long there was no judicial pronouncements that tended to challenge their conduct in office, they left the judiciary to deal with normal trival matters. They found an ingenious technical way to include ouster clauses into some of their decrees to oust the judicial powers of the court, particularly when the citizens wanted to enforce their fundamental human rights. And to prohibit such challenges to the military powers and authority as witnessed in the Lakanmi Kikelomo’s case in Western Region, they promulgated the Decree No.28, Federal Military Government (Supremacy and Enforcement) of Powers Decree of 1970 to totally establish that the military regime was not subject to any law or authority except as it was so decreed by the military government itself.
Dear Parliamentarians The strong arm tactics of the military has been invested in most of the succeeding civilian executives since 1999. They are mostly unwilling to help the legislature to act independently as expected in the constitution. The most significant challenge before Nigeria today is how to strengthen the parliament. Part of our national misfortune is that most of those who found their way into the legislatures were agents of power brokers and or buccaneers, whose interests were ordinarily opposite to that of the general public. In fact, it was noticed that they usually instigated the assemblies to issue notices of impeachments against the president and governors occasionally to score some points or to forcefully won some advantages. That was why the issue of third term for Obasanjo divided the members of the Nigerian Senate into about three powerful enclaves, namely, the Vice President Atiku Abubakar, General Ibrahim Babangida and President Olusegun Obasanjo platforms respectively. The Executive Presidential system of government provides for an independent, but complEmentary, three arms of government where each arm provides for a check and balance on the others.
Dear Lawmakers I know that you can also appreciate that corruption and lack of transparency can only remain significant in any executive presidential system whenever the legislature has failed to adequately perform it’s constitutional role. In the parliamentary system, the fact that the executive are also part of the legislature, ensure that they have to defend their conduct regularly in the parliament. Sometimes, vote of confidence is taken which can always lead to government retaining his power as the ruling party or the government falls if it looses the vote of confidence. Certainly the hallowed platform ensures that the executive is kept on its toes.
• Opadokun
Under Section 59 (1) of the 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, titled “Mode of exercising Federal Legislative power” money bills states that: The provisions of this section shall apply to: (a) An appropriation bill or a supplementary appropriation bill, including any other bill for the payment, issue or withdrawal from the Consolidated Revenue Fund or any other public fund of the Federation of any money charged thereon or any alteration in the amount of such a payment, issue or withdrawal; and (b) A bill for the imposition of or increase in any tax, duty or fee or any reduction, withdrawal or cancellation thereof. Governance has not delivered efficient services to Nigerians in most matters since the return to democracy which Nigerians fought for under grave circumstances, with activists paying the sacrifices with their sweat, blood and even their lives. Yet, since 1999, Nigeria has earned extremely huge petro dollars more than $300 billion because of various conficts around the globe. But as the external earnings improved, so the living standard of our people has been deteriorating. There is the usual weekly theatre of the absurd called Federal Executive Council, FEC meeting where they normally exchange banters for robbing each others back on contracts and ratify many over inflated contract awards, yet their annual performances were usually below 30 per cent as the National Assembly had infact condemned. So the beat goes on as the citizens don’t find any positive change to their fortunes. Our social services, education, medical services, etc remain prostrate and morally unconscionable, our infrastructure remain decayed and disproportionate to the huge fortune petrol dollars had brought our way. In fact, some consider the discovery of petroleum in Nigeria as a course rather than a blessing. Our national image and fortune cannot improve from what it has been since 1999 except there is a fundamental turn around in the manner you, our law makers handle your constitutional responsibilities. For example the latest UNDP Human Development Index (HDI) report as carried by two Nigerian dailies revealed as follows. “Nigeria has surfaced again as the country which ranked 156 out of 187 countries in the latest United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) Human Development Index (HDI) report. The HDI is a comparative measure of life expectancy, literacy level, education and standard of living for nations of the world. It is also a standard means of measuring people’s
well-being, especially in child welfare. The overall outcome of the HDI is used to classify nations according to the ranks of developed, developing or underdeveloped. In the 2010 HDI report Nigeria was ranked 142 out of 169 countries. For Nigeria to have slipped to 156 from 142 is, to say the least, worrisome. It is a clear indictment of the nation’s leadership that between 2010 and 2011 nothing was done to alleviate the sufferings, and uplift the standard of living of the nation’s distraught and over-burdened populace”. However, our experience has been that rather than our law makers independently ensuring diligent performance for projects for which they have appropriated public fund most of the committee chairmen and members have collaborated with the executives and the contractors to pay most of these contractors public money for contracts that were overinflated, abandoned or poorly executed. For example, if you, the legislature, appropriated funds for road construction and housing, etc and yet no road was constructed, not to talk of being declared open, it can only remain unchallenged so because of gross criminal neglect and or criminal collaboration among you, the law makers with the executive and the contractors. The Nigerian constitution grants you, the lawmakers OVERSIGHT function and responsibility over the various government services. It is the expectation of the law and the public that the law makers will be alive to their constitutional responsibility by over-sighting the various projects for which you have appropriated public funds so as to ensure that you follow up the progress of execution of such projects and that the projects are executed in accordance with the specified standard and quality. For the greater part of the existence of the National Assembly before the current 2011 session the Nigerian Parliament has significantly failed to perform their real constitutional duties and have been much more interested in the pursuit of trivals and personal interests. Otherwise, President Obasanjo could not have gone away with numerous infractions, misuse of public fund that were not even appropriated for by the parliament. For example, with over N200billion appropriated for road construction under Obasanjo and Tony Annenihs Ministry of Works and Housing, No road was delivered. Neither the President or his ally, Annenih has been questioned nor brought to book. The public should be reminded of the gross misuse of public funds in the holding of the Commonwealth Games where among other illegitimate things that happened, President Obasanjo was reportedly to have approved double payments for two different contracts for the supply of the electronic gadgets when in fact they needed just one network.
Dear Nigerian Lawmakers Your immediate collegues surrendered to blackmail, threats and inducements to probe the NNPC and there was no account for all money confiscated from General Abacha’s loot. The Nigerian earnings have been stolen, misused, misapplied, and misallocated by the ruling class and their agents and representatives in government. Another avenue for gross misuse of public funds is the usually undisclosed security votes, which are not subject to any scrutiny either by the parliament or the government auditors. Again, Nigeria contracts are usually inflated, abandoned, and poorly executed yet the contractors always find their ways to collect the contract sum in full. And the criminal partitioning of the Common national patrimony among themselves is the rule rather than an aberration. Yet, the ordinary person appears helpless in the face of glaring cases of official corruption and perversion of their oath of office. An example of recent occurrences of such is the unreasonably inflated cost of building another runway at the Abuja airport
‘There is no doubt that the active agents of military dictatorship who in the recent past collaborated to annul electoral victory in 1993 have manipulated themselves into important position of the leadership of the National Assembly. They remain discredited inspite of the greatly flawed election that brought them to high office. You, the agent of public goodwill should think out of the box as you strategies for productive legislative duties’
which was found to be higher than the current globally approved cost of building a totally new airport with all complimentary facilities. We cannot forget in hurry that some officials of the Electricity Commission of Nigeria along with the Chairmen of the Senate and House of Representatives Committees on power were about 2009/2010 charged to court for stealing over #5billion naira in a contract bazaar without complying with due process. The law makers rather than perform their constitutional duties of oversight criminally compromised with the executive and the contractors to rip-off Nigerians of hard earned national resources. The prosecution has stalled for undisclosed reason(s) even though rumour in the media indicated that some of the contractors were in fact nominees of the highest authority of the National Assembly. There are today many abandoned projects throughout the country because you, the member of the legitimate institution, charged with ensuring that the executive is not allowed to misbehave in it’s usage of appropriated resources have overwhelmingly failed to do their public duty for which you were so elected. In the states, the story is similar or are not too different. Most Governors have pocketed the State Assemblies. Intransigent Speakers are usually booted out by their collegues who are usually acting the script of the executive. Sometimes, minority group that could not form quorum have successfully sacked sitting speaker with majority in the most illegal and unconstitutional way as we have witnessed in some states of the country. The law expects that the legislature and the executive will collaborate to provide effective governance and credible delivery of services. So one is not suggesting that the lawmakers should be on regular war path with the executive arms since they are jointly running the same government. It is just that the legislature has a very unique and critical duties to perform in other that the executive arm of government performs reasonably to expectation in the interest of the public.
Dear National Parliamentarians One is not unmindful that the April 2011 National Assembly elections have brought into your hallowed chambers, an appreciable number of highly credible, trustworthy, competent and ethically compliant set of legislators both in the House of Representatives and the Senate. One is confident that though the opposition is still small in number particularly in the Senate, but with some significant representation in the House, the new law makers will individually and collectively hopefully make great positive impact on the way the National Assembly does it’s business henceforth. Some of the fresh faces have been part of the popular struggle to redeem Nigeria. We have jointly fought in the trenches. There is no doubt that the active agents of military dictatorship who in the recent past collaborated to annul electoral victory in 1993 have manipulated themselves into important position of the leadership of the National Assembly. They remain discredited inspite of the greatly flawed election that brought them to high office. You, the agent of public goodwill should think out of the box as you strategies for productive legislative duties The import of this correspondence is to ask you, the parliamentarians to appreciate the all important constitutional duties you are expected to perform in other to justify peoples trust and mandate given to you as their agents who should always strive to protect, defend and promote the interests of the voters. Our unfortunate situation, I dare say will even get worse except and until you, our representatives, at the centre join the battle to enforce accountable and productive governance. Let me make this clarion call to the voters generally. There is a need for the voters to note that henceforth, they have a duty to screen the contestants to the legislatures much more critically having regard to their very important constitutional responsibilities. As the principal of an elected lawmaker, henceforth, the voters should be much more painstaking, deliberately considering the past records of candidates before investing their trust and confidence in any lawmaker. You would in the process have assisted to prevent Nigeria from going under as Nigeria is not immune from the manifestations of the current Arab Spring. Once again, accept the assurances of my highest regard. • Mr Opadokun is the Convener of the Coalition of Democrats for Electoral Reforms (CODER)