The National Assembly is at the threshold of better days. This signal comes from the independence of action shown by the Lower House in the election of its speaker and deputy speaker, which speaks volumes about the maturity of that House. Across the lobby, the reelection of the president and deputy president of the last Senate to lead the present is a salutary development for the stability of the National Assembly and the entrenchment of values.
However, many folk-this writer included- may find it to understand how and why this is the Seventh National Assembly. The correct number should not be so hard to determine, should it?
The history books speak glowingly of the Assembly of patriots who ushered in Nigerian independence in 1960. After the long arduous negotiations at the various Constitutional Conferences, the motion by Sir Abubakar Tafawa Balewa on 14 January 1960, requesting of Her Majesty’s Government “legislation providing the establishment of the Federation of Nigeria on October 1st 1960, as an independent sovereign state”, brought to life a dormant spirit.
Over a three day period, no fewer than 57 parliamentarians, including Obafemi Awolowo, leader of the opposition, spoke on the motion for independence. Remarkably, the motion did not attract a single dissenting voice. This is essentially the triumphal spirit over divisive forces and tendencies that has seen our nation through several dark moments.
In the long national journey to progress and development, we must assign duty to whom it is due and accord the National Assembly its proper place in the engine room of governance. The executive may rightly occupy the driving seat while the judiciary keeps track of shunting and speeding limits etc. Has the National Assembly lived up to billing in 50 years of independence? The answer is moot.
Though it lost its bearings on the Western Regional Crisis, the First National Assembly recorded landmark achievements like the Kainji Dam, the Niger Bridge at Onitsha and urban development projects in Lagos and Port Harcourt, etc., aside from laying the groundwork of national economic planning as we know it today. Everyone now laments the great days gone by when agriculture was the mainstay of the economy. The credit goes to the first generation of assemblymen and women who gave priority to the sector. Lawmakers in their own right, the members of the executive branch of the era sat in parliament regularly and could feel and share the mood of the nation at all times.
This is not a campaign for the return to the Westminster model; a system is only as good as the practitioners want it to be.
There is no doubt certainly, that if General Gowon had a National Assembly to oversee his budget, he could not have made the famous statement credited to him; that Nigeria was so rich he did not know what to do with the money. Still, the huge shopping lists of his grandiose Third National Development Plan got its most important items; Ajaokuta steel mill, expansion of tertiary education, etc., from the blueprints of the Balewa era, consciously beaten into shape (contentiously, some might say,) by the First Assembly.
Unconsciously, however, the 2nd National Assembly and its short lived successor (October – December 31 1983) could not duplicate the vision and sense of purpose of the first. Blame it on the heightened partisan squabbles of the time and the hangover from thirteen years of military rule. But the agrarian revolution envisaged by the executive floundered on the massive importation of rice and other staples. The National Assembly did not have the courage to push forward the agrarian initiatives of the departing military regime but championed instead a squandering of the national wealth. Sadly, apart from the rotting Shagari Estates dotting the country today, there is not much to say for those years though the Senate managed to establish a convention that a senator once elected should be so known for life! One has encountered the view that the legislators of that Republic did not have benefit of constituency votes. Be that as it may, the point is that a legislature may rightly be judged on the achievements of the executive with whom it shares power.
The Babangida Transition Programme produced what should rightly be the 4th National Assembly. The arguments for discounting it are not so clear to me. Earlier, we have ignored the parliament that survived the 1964 general elections; the boycott in the East and large parts of the West having made a complete sham of the exercise. For all practical purposes, a “new Assembly”, was never proclaimed, though the sharing of ministerial offices took place for the formation of a “broad based government of national unity.” But the National Assembly of the Babangida years should fit a different label.
Drawing its legitimacy from the ill-fated Interim National Government, that Assembly held the ball long enough to “its own half” to deny Babangida the life he needed to extend his iron grip on the country. It would seem therefore, that the declaration of the ING as an illegality and its swift putsch by Sani Abacha took the shine off its short but impactful run on the national stage. Imagine what could have happened if that Assembly had lost the ball to the “Evil Genius.”
A similar scenario played out in the die-hard efforts of President Obasanjo’s supporters to extend his tenure in 2006. Whereas, Senate president Iyorchia Ayu had a date, August 27 1993, to contend with, Ken Nnamani twelve years later had the frightful duty to umpire a fixed match. He unfixed it in a very bold and creative fashion. Senators came forward to declare their stands on tenure elongation publicly and the attempt was fixed for good. The point bears repeating therefore, that a courageous and vigilant legislature is the surest defence against dictatorship.
It is most unfair therefore, that the National Assembly which stopped a power seeking “Maradona” in his mesmerising tracks should lose its place in history due largely to the dictator’s inelegant mistake. The argument appears to be that the declaration of the ING as illegal by the courts taints every associated institution with felony.
It stands to reason however, that the ING was de facto-legal until the courts found otherwise on November 16, 1993. Furthermore, no treaties, agreements, etc., entered into by that government has been annulled or struck out by the courts. Besides, the question begs to be asked; if the National Assembly that kept watch over the ING is deemed unworthy of recognition, why is Ernest Sonekan enjoying the full privileges of a former head of state? Why is he fit to attend the meetings of the Council of State? Going by the conventions afore-mentioned, the denial of recognition to that Assembly means that the likes of Bola Tinubu and Iyorchia Ayu have no business toting the title of senator around.
Anyway, the final return to democracy in 1999 has changed the tempo of political development in Nigeria. Three National Assemblies afterwards, we have a lot to sigh about and much also to cheer: from the certificate scandals of those introductory years, the unseemly exhibition of money filled sacks on the floor of the Senate and rash turnover of Senate presidents and serial high profile contract scams, to ground breaking legislation setting up the ICPC and the EFCC to create the enabling environment for transparency in national affairs.
The records of the last two Assemblies (2003-2007; 2007-11) demonstrate that the national legislature is slowly, but surely rising to the challenge of its constitutional and patriotic duty to the fatherland. The AMCON Act, the Petroleum Local Content Act, the Electoral Act (as amended) the Freedom of Information Act and other noteworthy legislation of the last eight years give us hope that better days lie ahead.
However, a lot of work awaits the current National Assembly. Tough national questions subsist which demand urgent and satisfactory answers: states creation, the persistent energy and fuel crises, critical shortfalls in infrastructure, gaps in budgeting expenditures and execution coupled with the huge overlay of abandoned projects- 11,000 by recent surveys! Topping this agenda, we must assume, is the work attitude of legislators whose predilection for truancy has been a matter of concern to the Senate president. The new season must not tolerate lazy legislators who proudly wear the toga of ‘honourable” and “distinguished senators” but shun the long hours of hard work required of them.
Another issue agitating the minds of Nigerians now is the jumbo pay packages of political office holders. It goes without saying that the National Assembly must lead by example when as expected the executive bows to public pressure and pays more than lip service to the issue. It won’t be the first time either. Back in 1961, the political leadership faced similar public outcry against the huge salaries and allowances of parliamentarians and senior civil servants. Some analysts dared even suggest at the time, that the Senate was a dispensable luxury. In time the prime minister acceded to the calls for austere wages and allowances. He announced a series of cuts in salaries, allowances and overseas travels for political office holders and senior civil servants. The opposition called for reductions in the number of ministries around the country. You see, we have been there before!
Anyway, the prime minister limited himself to 10% cut in salaries, saying, “I cannot afford my salary being cut by 20%, even the 10% cut I agreed to very reluctantly.”
Question: Can any one of our present generation of public servants say the same?
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