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 the Guinness 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 by The 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.

http://www.punchng.com/editorials/seventh-national-assembly-betrayed-nigerians/

Tambuwal is simply a failure

The betrayal took root, grew and blossomed via the waters of corrupt Goodluck Ebele Jonathan

Worse than betrayal is the squandered opportunity that followed each time Nigeria heads off course we manage to achieve redundancy rather than progress.

Change una no go smell not to tink of seeing it

[b]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.[/quote]



And they want us clothe them again for doing nothing.