By Prisca Sam-Duru
Here we go again! For the 10th National Assembly, the All Progressives Congress, APC, in what it described as a template developed by the president-elect, Bola Tinubu and adopted by its National Working Committee, NWC, during the week, announced the zoning arrangement for principal positions in the National Assembly.
As it stands, we have Southwest as president, Northeast as vice president, South-South as Senate president, the Speaker of the House goes to Northwest, the Deputy Senate president goes to Northwest and Deputy Speaker will be Southeast. From the arrangement, North Central is missing out and the people think that’s unfair as they believe they gave the APC enough votes during the February 25 elections and so, should have been more represented. The Southeast which many thought would have been given the position of the Senate president has also lost out.
For starters, is it right for each ruling party coming on board to decide on lawmakers that’ll occupy each key position in the National Assembly? Isn’t this the reason we have what we call the rubber stamp Senate? For the fact that they were selected by an incoming executive arm of government for such principal positions, there is the possibility that the saying, he who pays the piper, calls the tune must come into play.
Analysing issues regarding the zoning arrangement, renowned journalist and politician, Dr Reuben Abati made it categorically clear that it is not proper for the executive to decide legislators who should occupy principal positions in the National Assembly.
According to him leadership of the National Assembly has always been a time of conflict between legislative independence and party supremacy. He pointed out that Section 50 of the 1999 constitution says that lawmakers in Nigeria shall choose from among themselves but the party usually resists that.
Dr Abati who commented on the issue during Arise TV programme, faulted the zoning arrangement citing examples of successive governments that attempted the same style. He would rather, that the incoming government focuses on issues of national development.
“Nigeria is at a crossroads and cannot afford a rubber stamp National Assembly. We cannot afford to have in Aso Villa, a president who is at the same time, the leader of the National Assembly. We have seen the effect of rubber stamp National Assembly; anything the president wants is what they’ll do. There are very serious issues to be considered and people who are in the National Assembly must be placed in a position where they can use their brains otherwise, we have more people sleeping in that place. We don’t want people who go to the National Assembly to dose off because they know that whatever the Executive brings they’ll rubber stamp it; having put them there.”
Abati stated further that instead of focusing on key issues of the high rates of inflation, unemployment, insecurity etc, what we see is the individual ambition of people who think that certain powerful positions must be given to them.
He then said that there does not seem to be a consideration for the welfare of the common man, stressing that the time has come for the followers to begin to speak up and make demands from these politicians; they should be made to understand that they are there for the people and not for their selfish ambition.
Rufai Oseni on the same programme, corroborates Dr Abati’s stance. “Nigerians like to deceive themselves” he began saying, adding that why there’s always a conflict in filling major positions in the National Assembly historically, is because the executive is usually so strong. “We are supposed to have three arms of government- Executive, Legislative and Judiciary but we have an Executive that is so strong that it has put the Judiciary under its armpits. They quote party supremacy inadvertently, trying to put the legislative under their armpits. If we want to run a safe government there must be co-equal arms of government and if they are co-equal arms, the party should not make input on how the legislative zone principal officers; they should allow them to do their thing.”
Again, with the APC zoning arrangement which has resulted in confusion in their camp, Sen. Orji Uzor Kalu’s ambition of becoming the senate president may not be bright although he is among those fighting back. Also is that of Osita Izunaso. Dave Umahi never had a chance. These are southeast politicians who’ve clung to APC with the hope of rewards afterwards, regardless of how their interests affect their region. Umahi, even, reportedly said Bola Tinubu asked him to step down for Sen. Godswill Akpabio for the position of Senate president; and you’d wonder why.
Southeast governors who supported APC with the hope of being rewarded with principal positions at the National Assembly are definitely licking their wounds right now. But will they learn any lessons from that and from the experiences of others like Governor Bello Matawalle of Zamfara state who left PDP for APC hoping the ruling party would help him fight insecurity, alas, insecurity became worse in his state? To cap it all, he lost re-election to a PDP candidate. The fact is that these politicians especially from the southeast will never learn. They are perennially used, outsmarted and dumped!.
The big question is, are these southeast governors and politicians generally fighting for positions because of the people or, for their own interests? Oseni thinks it is for their self-interest. He noted that why politicians are fighting for principal positions with many supporting them is “because they know most of the lawmakers going in there want juicy committees. So if you support your candidate and he becomes Senate president, he will definitely influence getting you in juicy committees where people make money through oversight roles.” He said categorically that the grand scale of all this is still corruption and self and personal benefits.
In the same vein, Nigerians who support them just because they are from the same region or because they stand the chance of getting positions or being listed among committees that fetch good money in the legislature will never learn as well.
There have been groups protesting and demanding that certain candidates be considered for diverse positions in the National Assembly. The question is, after those candidates get in, will these people’s communities smell good governance as a result? From these politicians’ antecedents, the answer is obviously negative. How many of the lawmakers are interested in laws or policies that will raise the fallen standard of education in the country, or ensure there’s nothing like out-of-school children anymore? Of course, they care less about that area because the majority of them have their children schooling abroad.
The same thing goes in the health sector. In the majority of the communities, these groups of protesters come from, you hardly find healthcare centres. People still travel miles to access medical care as was done in the primitive era while the leaders enjoy medical tourism. Yet they’ve had representatives in the National Assembly over the years.
Isn’t it high time the masses understood how much they are being used by these politicians to achieve their selfish interests? Like vultures are seen where carcasses or putrefaction are, so are many of these politicians; fighting for juicy positions that’ll benefit them and their families. If they have the national interest at the core of the jostling for positions, Nigeria wouldn’t have sunk to the level it has especially in terms of corruption and decay in the sectors.
As a way forward, Oseni declared that only a National Assembly with people’s interests will develop Nigeria.
“Until we have a National Assembly that works for the people, we’ll not have a good country. The only way to make the National Assembly work is by de-emphasising money in politics.
“Make these National Assembly people part-time workers; only pay them for sitting, do not pay them fat salaries, just pay them for certain allowance and you’ll see that most of them are there for their personal interests and self-aggrandizement. That’s why its only Nigerian people that take loans to do politics.”
On the zoning arrangement, he said that “They’ve automatically kicked aside the Southeast. They’ll argue that the Southeast had a position of Senate president during Obasanjo’s time, but now, the same South-South that got the position of Deputy Senate president in the last dispensation is being considered for the Senate president. The southeast that agitated, got nothing. I’m sure that the same southeast governors left their parties, trusting that APC will do them justice … At first, they said they were going to give them president, which they didn’t get. Now they are missing out in principal positions in the National Assembly.”
He further noted that “those governors will have a rethink because in the end, Southeast doesn’t get anything. Even the North Central is complaining of being left out after helping APC during the elections.
“Every generation determines its destiny and so is the National Assembly. I was shocked when I saw Orji Uzor Kalu in a joint press conference with Ifeanyi Uba from the YPP talking about the need for Southeast leadership in the Senate; probably they might be able to do a deal with those that don’t align with the APC and see how they can go through. It could be a game of interest but there’s big danger if we don’t have equal arms of government.”
Recalling the last incidence whereby the CBN Act was broken due to recklessness, he said, “If the National Assembly is rubber stamp, its problematic; they’ll start to make faulty decisions like the one made with Ways and Means where the legislature of the country deliberately in cahoots with federal government- the Executive, broke a law that was ratified by the legislature and signed into law by the Executive- that’s the CBN Act.
“So that’s the kind of country we’re building. We do not have a country of transparency, honesty and integrity and this is going to continue because most people there are for their own selfish interests.”
