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Who will probe Nigeria’s National Assembly?

Joel Nwokeoma - 5/2/2008

These, seemingly, are the best of times for members of the two chambers of Nigeria’s National Assembly. It looks no doubt as their time to shine, and they, surely, are reveling in it. A casual review of governance activities in the country as succinctly captured by the media in recent times will show that the sun looks to be shining the brightest in the National Assembly, or so it seems. This, however, is not taking anything away from the phenomenal interventions and activism of the judicial arm of government especially on the strength of the bold and courageous judgments so far declared on the last general elections.

But when compared with the judicial and executive arms, members of the National Assembly, of course with the possible exception of Senator Iyabo Obasanjo Bello, are presently lapping up the whole acclaim and media attention in recent times, unfortunately though, not so much for the quality and number of bills they have made into law, or for guiding the executive to deliver the famed democratic dividends, (you may even recall that it took four months before the 2008 budget impasse could be resolved), but for the flurry of probes the two chambers of the National Assembly have variously carried out on the last administration. The most famous of these probes is the Ndudi Elumelu led House of Representatives Committee on Power and Steel probing the alleged $16billion spent on the energy sector between 1999 and 2007. For a nation that looks historically unshockable and also seems to have a surfeit of what someone called the “dearth of outrage”, the revelations from those that have testified before the “Wise Men” so far are simply scandalous and shameful, to put it mildly. From contractors who collected money, huge sums, without doing any job to contracts being awarded to ‘ghost’ companies without any traceable contact, and also without regard to due process to boot.

As if nudged into life, at least to prove to Nigerians that they too are “Active as Senators”, the upper chambers not too long later approved the setting up of the Senate Joint Committee to investigate the activities of the Federal Capital Territory regimes since 1999, which many have since mischievously termed ‘The Trial of el Rufai”. So far, the nation’s sensibilities have been assaulted with shocking disclosures of how, among others, the former minister, Mallam El-Rufai, who used to walk with the swagger of a monk, reportedly got 18 plots of land in choice areas of Abuja for himself, his business interests and some members of his family. And also, how the big masquerade himself, former President Olusegun Obasanjo and his family members acquired 15 plots of land during the life of the regime (see The Guardian April 15). But by far the most stupefying is the revelation that Senator Abubakar Sodangi, Chairman of the probe panel himself, acquired 20 plots of land in Abuja, which raises the question of what moral rights he has to probe the land allocation process in which he is an alleged beneficiary. That is a tale for another day, any way.

Perhaps moved by the ‘spirit’ of the Elumelu Power Probe Panel findings thus far, the House of Representatives was the other day reported to have mandated the safesame committee to extend its public inquest into the historically stinking oil sector to cover, among other things, oil block contracts, crude lifting and activities of the Nigerian National Petroleum Company (NNPC) and the Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR). Obviously, other committees want to join in the ‘dancing in the sun’, apologies to Onyeka Onwenu, by engaging in one probe or another. One was even reported to be considering probing the election tribunals judgments. In fact, at no time in Nigeria’s democratic experience has the National Assembly so “busy”!

But whatever anyone might say, no one is tickled one bit by these holier-than-thou posturing and obviously non-legislative activities of the National Assembly! Does the National Assembly exist only to set up probe panels, you may ask? Many have loudly wondered if the results of the various probes would even see the light of the day, talk more of their recommendations being implemented if our history with probes is anything to go by, thereby raising questions about their usefulness. Some analysts have even expressed the fear that with the way things are going, members of the National Assembly may actually spend, or waste if you care, the whole of this year not in any meaningful legislative activity, but in carrying out probes in sundry alleged infractions at the expense of their core constitutional responsibility. Another school of thought posit that if the law makers had been mindful of their constitutional oversight functions in the first instance, much of these infractions they so gleefully probe now would not have been allowed to take place in the ab initio.

In other words, where were these now hyperactive committees of the National Assembly in the last democratic dispensation? Did President Yar’Adua invent probe on his inauguration on May 29 2007, how come for eight years there was no attempt at investigating how public funds were being put to use? Moreso, why were they not able to carry out their oversight functions well all these while to mitigate these malignant infractions besides appropriating upward reviews on their allowances and salaries? The challenge is for the law makers to prove that they are, like Julius Caesar’s wife would say, above board. But we all know they are not. How many of us know that over 75 percent of the bills passed into law since 1999 originated from the executive arm?

Lest we forget, who ever remembers that members of the National Assembly are expected to carry out constituency projects in their various constituencies? And that budgetary allocations were made consistently since 1999 for this purpose? Are Nigerians aware how these funds were spent by members of the National Assembly since then? How many of them have done this faithfully? Where are these constituency projects if they are being implemented, at least none can be found anywhere in Ohaji/Egbema and Oguta local governments in Imo State, where I come from? Against this backdrop, can the nation rise up to probe its National Assembly? Can we remind them that charity begins at home, not outside? This is more so because when it happens, as it sure will, that in the frenetic quest to unearth the rot that defined the political landscape in the previous democratic dispensation, and sadly without addressing the situation, it failed, as it is in its character, to make the laws that could conduce good governance for the overall objective of improving the well being of the nation, who then will ask them questions?