THE legislature occupies a central and important place in a presidential democracy, the reason for which it is duly accorded a dignified place in the constitution and given the onerous responsibility to make laws for the good governance of the country.The National Assembly and other state Assemblies enjoy this status and the privileges that come with. But whether they understand the enormity of the task that is placed before them and the responsibility that nobility bestows is a different matter.In 1999, the excuse given by the legislature for its false and suspicious start was that it lacked requisite experience. The explanation then was that, in the years that the military had stolen, only the legislature was abrogated while the other two arms - executive and judiciary- remained. The executive continued to function, with all the gamut of agencies, departments and ministries; the judiciary also survived, even though it suffered a great deal of siege and suffocation. It was only the legislature that had no opportunity for any form of quasi survival.If that argument made sense in 1999, is it still sufficient to justify the many summersaults of the legislature, more than 10 years after' The country has gone through many 'trials,' barely surviving to see the next day and yet, there are legislative houses that seem far removed from the harrowing realities of each day.The common pictures about the Legislature are chambers where seats are half empty everyday; where the executive, in the case of states is an emperor who is 'untouchable'; where budgets are not painstakingly monitored and rigour is totally absent.Can this economy continue to sustain this perennial assault of an overweight legislature, whose total budgets can sustain some economies in Africa; legislatures that are shy to disclose their earnings because it would cause some kind of financial earthquake; legislatures that pad budgets just to make sure they are well taken care of, while less than a quarter is allocated for capital expenditure; even that minute capital budget does not get executed because too many legislative committees that should oversight the budgets are busy haranguing MDAs for their cuts.Yet, they come on the floor with empty braggadocio, to grandstand over budgets that are not implemented, when they know that what should have gone into the capital vote had been awarded to them as constituency allowance, sums which they use to hold their constituents captive. They go home to dish out perishables at ward meetings and gossips centres in order to secure their next election.The legislature is noted more for scandals than for genuine debates to hold government accountable on behalf of the people. When the legislature conduct probes, they do so as double agents. They pretend to the public that they mean well and go behind to demand bribes from the people and companies they are supposed to investigate. This is why there are no tangible results from the many probes instigated by the legislature.The Legislature is to quick to pronounce that democracy has come to stay. Let it be reminded that the ingredients that ought to announce the arrival of democracy are absent on the roads, industrial estates, schools, hospitals and homes. Let it not be said that the Legislature contributed immensely in the killing of democracy, with its many scandals and greed.To put it bare, the Platonic prescriptions for the building of a perfect state have never been followed in the composition of the Nigeria's legislature. Just anybody that has a dubious capacity for the power game is allowed onto the arena and so, what exists at every point in time is very close to the all comer affair of the Greek parliament. The singular most important qualification is the contestant's ability to overwhelm Nigeria's weak institutions of democracy namely the electoral body, the security agencies and the judiciary and make him or herself inevitable in the electoral process.This explains why the bills in the House usually have more to do with currency than laws. For instance, the hottest matter in the lower House today is a dollar bill that came in multiples totaling $620,000.00 and introduced by Farouk Lawan, a member representing Bagwai/Shanono Federal Constituency of Kano State. The matter came a week or so after former President Olusegun Obasanjo said emphatically at one public forum that no good laws should be expected from the country's legislature because the bunch at both the Federal and state levels is infested with rogues and armed robbers. 'Integrity is necessary for systems and institutions to be strong. Today, rogues, armed robbers are in the state Houses of Assembly and the National Assembly' he said, stressing, 'what sort of laws will they make''Back to the 620,000 dollars bill. The other name of Farouk Lawan, the sponsor of the bill and who has remained in the House of Reps since the inception of this dispensation in 1999, is Mr. Integrity. He has managed to transmit a clean picture of himself to the observing public and not too many questions are asked when he speaks. He stood against the tenure elongation project and other undemocratic antics of Obasanjo and he was applauded all the way. Many of the legislators who played alongside with him in that epic legislative chess game to save the Constitution and limit the executive arm to its duly assigned role were expended like pawns. They lost the opportunity to return to the House on the PDP ticket. The losers include two former Speakers, Ghali Na Abba and Bello Masari. But Lawan returned unscathed and nobody remembered to ask him questions because he is Mr. Integrity. He is the proverbial cat with nine lives and he has only expended four. One insider however revealed that Lawan understands the national psychology and has so far, so good, played the game in a manner that benefits him and pleases Nigerians.When former House Speaker, Patricia Ette purportedly squandered over half a billion naira on the renovation of her official quarters, Lawan and others created the Integrity Group that rattled Madam Ette off the exalted seat. For 13 years, he had operated untainted and appeared as the most consistent representative of the Nigerian people. Because he loves shows, he often refuses to lie low even when it is tactically and strategically helpful to do so. Diminutive, what he lacks in size, he tries to make up talking tough and big. Or more appropriately, he thinks perhaps that loquacity is a legislative virtue. He had a field day as chairman of the House Committee on Information.The removal of subsidy on petrol in January by the Federal Government had touched off a chain reaction one of which was the institution of an ad-hoc committee by the House of Reps to probe the subsidy regime. It was evidently a tough task and no queries were raised when it was assigned to Mr. Integrity. He was equal to it. As chairman of the committee, Lawan came on air on one occasion to exhibit his elements. He said there was tremendous pressure from quarters being investigated but vowed not to buckle. Nobody doubted him.Lawan came back after he had submitted the report of the probe to the House that Zenon Oil and Gas, owned by Mr. Femi Otedola was wrongly listed as a culprit in the subsidy scam. It was Mr. Integrity speaking and people completely lowered their guards while listening to him. Nobody had the hunch to say, 'wait a minute, how did that happen'' But as it has since turned out, Lawan only drew on his existing goodwill as Mr. Integrity of the House of Reps to pull through an alleged deal between him and Femi Otedola. The price was good; three million dollars, enough to cause a big stir at that level. The $620,000.00 that has already changed hands was only part payment of the total sum.A version of the story says that Femi Otedola described in business circles as shrewd wanted to eat his cake and have it. That ever before the advance was paid he had decided on the extent he would go with Lawan hence he did those secret recordings. And that when Lawan who ignorant of the details kept pestering Otedola like a gadfly over the huge outstanding balance, the latter decided to go the way he did. Another version says this macabre dance was choreographed in Aso Rock to lure Lawan and the House leadership, which does not enjoy the support of neither the Presidency nor the ruling PDP into trouble. In fact, one insider said ever before the video of the bribery scandal was pushed to the public domain, Speaker Aminu Tambuwal was invited by the director-general of the State Security Service, Mr. Ita Ekpeyong for a privileged preview and probably warn him of the danger ahead.The thinking, generally, is that three million dollars is not petty cash and Lawan would not have acted without collaborators. That, if anything, Lawan was only a chief negotiator in a deal that had the shadows of the principal officers of the House looming in the background. But this is a difficult position to push for the simple reason that Lawan who accepted collecting the money, did not say he transmitted same to the House or its leadership. He only explained that he kept the $620,000 in his personal vaults, without letting anybody know of it, and waiting patiently for an auspicious time to tender the lot as proof of bribery against Otedola.For the first time, Lawan seems to have miscalculated and he is completely alone in this big matter that is threatening to consume him politically even as he preaches his innocence to whoever cares to listen. As first step, he has been relieved of his duties as chairman of the ad-hoc committee on subsidy and the House Committee on education. As second step, the matter has been referred to the House Committee on Ethics and Privileges for thorough investigation with a view to establishing his culpability or otherwise.By referring the matter to its Ethics Committee, the House is only trying to manage the collateral damage of the scandal. Otherwise, this is clearly a matter for the police and allied agencies, which have accordingly invited Lawan for questioning. But last week, more fuel was poured into the smoldering scandal when the recorded telephone conversations between Lawan and Otedola on the deal were aired on television in two episodes like a scintillating soap opera. The drama continued When Otedola appeared before the House Committee on Ethics and Privileges but refused to speak to it behind closed doors, insisting on the hearings being made public. The stalemate has not moved the matter forward. In fact, in the ensuing Lawan/Otedola staccato, the real matter, which is the prosecution of people who stole over one trillion naira from the national treasury under false claims of subsidizing the domestic consumption of petrol is taking a back seat.Section 89 of the 1999 Constitution empowers the legislature to oversee aspects of the functions of the executive. This is the crux of the matter. The National Assembly has suddenly become more interested in its so-called oversight functions than its core function of making laws for the god governance of the country. And so far, the script has followed a pattern. Noise about the poor operation of the targeted government's ministries, departments or agencies is created to surreptitiously secure public approval for legislative intervention. The relevant committees will then move in to expose and hunt down the bad operators. In no time however, the real intention of the legislators is played out, leading to a dramatic reversal of roles. Those that set out as hunters would end-up being hunted.This was the pattern followed by the Godwin Ndudi Elumelu headed House Committee which probed the utilization of about $16billion by the Obasanjo regime to improve electricity supply without adding a single megawatt to the national output. A few days to when the report would be submitted, an allegation flew in that members of the committee collected N100million bribe from a certain power contractor in Port Harcourt to do his bidding. Thereafter Elumelu himself had had a rough time invalidating a five billion-naira corruption charge on issues relating to power brought against him by the Economic and Financial Crime Commission (EFCC).It was not also different with The Capital Market probe committee headed by Herman Hembe a member representing Konshisha/Yande Kiya Federal Constituency of Benue State. When Hembe was carrying on like an attack dog and sounding too sanctimonious for his real self, the former director-general of the Security and Exchange Commission (SEC), Ms Arunna Oteh who was on the hot seat of the committee decided to open up the wings and present all the underhand businesses, such as arm twisting SEC to pay the committee chairman for oversea trips not made, that happened back stage. Hembe and his deputy on the committee, Chris Ifeanyi Azubogu are now going to and from the court room battling to clear themselves of a N44million fraud charge preferred against them by the EFFC.This has been the unfortunate picture. Yet when Senator Nuhu Aliyu, a former Deputy Inspector General of Police (DIG) and chairman of the Senate Committee on National Security and Intelligence in the Sixth Session of the Senate summoned courage to sound the whistle way back in 2008 that both chambers of the National Assembly were populated by murderers, crooks and scammers masquerading as lawmakers, not a few legislators asked for his head. Faced with the risk of expulsion from the Senate if he didn't identify physically the evil men in the hallowed chambers, he was forced to eat the humble pie. ''to err is human and to forgive is divine. I made a statement here which contradicts the law, I regret it' Aliyu pleaded.Before then, Mallam El Rufai, who like the tortoise, manages always to remain in every intriguing story said something about two distinguished senators who demanded N54million bribe to facilitate his (El Rufai's) clearance by the Senate as minister of the Federal Capital Territory. Unlike Aliyu, El Rufai had the courage to name Senators Jonathan Zwingina and Ibrahim Mantu both of whom however denied the allegation.In 2004, one Maurice Ibekwe, a member representing Okigwe North Federal Constituency in the First Session of the House of Representatives had died in EFFC cell. He was being investigated for crime relating to Advance Fee Fraud popularly called 419. Even the first speaker of that session, Salisu Buhari had come in on the basis of fraud. About the same time, there was crisis of identity at the Upper House. Members were probing to establish if the then Senate President was Evan or (Evans) Ewerem. The argument then was that a certain Evans Ewerem was convicted of crime long ago and that the Senate President dropped the's' from his name to obfuscate that criminal record. The letter 's' automatically became the coefficient of fraud in that diabolic power calculation to unseat Ewerem as Senate President by the camp of Dr Chuba Okadigbo who succeeded him.Thirteen years on, the legislature at both levels has not fine-tuned. It is still largely the house that Obasanjo described. Not to worry, there is time on the side of the operators. After all this democracy is tagged nascent, aspiring to attain maturity. Until it drops that appellation of 'Nascent Democracy' all the evils currently plaguing it can be adequately explained one way or the other. That is, no learning process drives smoothly.
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