Thursday, 11 November 2010

TWO members of the National Assembly, Senator Kala Mallam Yale, representing Borno Central Senatorial District and the minority leader in the House of Representatives, Muhammed Ali Ndume, representing Gwoza/Chibok/Damboa federal constituency, recently donated N100 million and N200 million respectively from their constituency allowances to the University of Maiduguri. The donations are meant to improve water supply and the Information and Communication Technology (ICT) of the institution.

THE Pro Chancellor and Chairman of the Governing Council of the university, Dr Wale Babalakin, made this disclosure in his address at the 21st convocation ceremony of the university recently. Against a desultory background of infrastructure decay and the deterioration of the intellectual environment, issues which have brought university education to its knees in certain state owned universities in the country, the gesture of these legislators ought to have at least elicited applause, indeed adulation from the discerning public and other stakeholders in the education sector. Indeed it ought to have even generated a bit of curiosity as to what other legislators from that state have been doing with their own constituency allowances. After all, there are still two other senators and other members of House of Representatives from Borno State who ought to have been taking more than a passing interest in the affairs of the University of Maiduguri.

HOWEVER, such a critique would only be superficial because this presumed generosity of these legislators has brought to the fore once again certain repugnant peculiarities of Nigeria’s democratic structure. One of such peculiarities is the expensive nature of the country’s democratic process which makes the average lawmaker earn more than their counterparts in other arguably more successful and effective democracies. It has been established that the Nigerian lawmaker has access to more funds than their American counterparts, for example, and this is amidst such odious and pervasive poverty and collapse of infrastructure in the land. Indeed, it is apposite to inquire about the value of this constituency allowance that is available to these legislators that they can unilaterally spend without actually consulting their various constituencies. It is indeed also necessary to ask if these legislators carried their various constituencies along in their decision to donate these amounts to the university. Are their various constituencies satisfied with the development programmes put in place by these legislators?

ANOTHER peculiarity of the democratic experience in Nigeria is the way in which making legislators have access to constituency allowance impacts negatively on the principle of separation of powers. It has been argued in many of our past editorials that legislators ideally should not do beyond the passing of bills into laws and that making them execute projects puts them in the logjam of confronting the executive arm of government and this to some extent, once informed the request which the judiciary once made that it should make decisions on awarding contracts for building courts or providing amenities which the court needs. It was a request which was generally condemned because it is at variance with the principle of separation of powers, a principle which is sacrosanct in a genuine democracy. We still believe that the access which the average Nigerian lawmaker has to constituency allowance has predisposed him to an abuse which, of course, facilitates corruption avidly. Besides, the ‘generous’ gesture of these legislators may be a ploy to sway the attention of the unwary public from finding out what has been done with whatever remains of the constituency allowance vis-a-vis the provision of infrastructure and delivering other dividends of democracy to them.

SADLY, in the peculiar Nigerian context, the hype made by these generous donations may ultimately succeed in distracting the public from the more fundamental issue of separation of powers, probity and accountability which are by far more important. It is also important to know if their various constituencies endorsed these donations that truly speaking have been made on their behalf.

HOW would the University of Maiduguri have approached its water supply and information and communication technology (ICT) challenges if these legislators had not donated N300 million to it? Does the university have a vote for such projects? What percentage of the challenges have the donations taken care of? We are not bowled over by the ‘generosity’ espoused by these legislators’ gesture. We would rather be on the side of propriety and probity and insist that it is not right for legislators to spend constituency allowances in assuaging their individual whims and predilections without any form of recourse to the constituencies which they represent and who may be suffering from different forms of deprivations, to garner glory and adulation for themselves. We think it is indeed reprehensible and fraudulent to do so.


http://tribune.com.ng/index.php/editorial/13364-the-generous-legislators