National Assembly And The Leadership Jostle: Matters Arising

Nigerians have just elected legislators at the federal and state levels. As at now, there is a number of legislators-elect jostling for leadership positions especially at the National Assembly. They are jostling to become principal officers, especially, to become Senate President or the Speaker of the House of Representatives, respectively. The quality of persons who get elected into the legislature and the few among the legislators who are chosen to lead the legislature, as firsts among equals, will determine to a great extent, the quality of laws, oversight activities and resolutions that will emanate from the legislature.

It is a fundamental aphorism that development and progress in any society is largely a product of the quality of laws in that society. Laws are made to provide for the public good, to encourage conduct considered progressive and discourage negative conduct. Thus, the legislature is the law-making organ in every society and in Nigeria. It is the first arm of government, following the constitutional provision in section 4. This comes before the provision for the executive in section 5 of the 1999 Constitution. It is the arm of government that makes laws for the peace, order and good government of the federation, the states and local governments.

Beyond law making, the legislature is the representative arm of government in every democracy. Legislators are elected as representatives of defined constituencies. They are primarily expected to champion their constituency interests and the general interests of the nation or state. In the Nigerian model of democracy, certain sums of money are set aside for constituency projects nominated by the legislator who is deemed to know the challenges and problems facing his constituents and as such, is best positioned to champion them through the budgeting process.

The legislative power of appropriation is a very important power as it reviews the propriety of executive proposals and controls the allocation and disbursement of funds in the public interest. While the executive proposes, the legislature makes the ultimate decision of approval. The legislature also exercises oversight over executive implementation of laws and policies, as well as conducts investigations and public hearings to expose corruption or mismanagement of public resources. Hearings can also be held to elicit information that will aid the process of making new laws or amending existing ones.

The legislature is called upon to make all types of laws and take decisions on basics like housing, food and clothing, to more complicated issues like science and technology, to ethical and moral issues like abortion, etc. Thus, a good legislator must be a very knowledgeable and exposed fellow who can reflect and research deeply into the problems of the society and come out with solutions.

To aspire to lead the Senate or House of Representatives, the norm has been for experienced and ranking members to take the lead. It is also important to point out that in other civilised climes, such ranking members must have a trajectory of achievements in terms of bills, motions and interventions sponsored. He should be associated with a progressive trend of thought and everyone can confirm what he or she stands for at any point in time. Thus, as she is being elected Senate President or Speaker, respectively, one can predict with mathematical accuracy his leaning on key national issues.

The legislator or the leader of the legislature must also be a person of high ethics and morality who is well-grounded in the nuances of his people. Law itself is a product of morality and ethics as it reflects the dynamics of social morality. Good ethics and morality are needed in taking decisions and votes that are untainted with self-interest, bribery and corruption, as well as respect for the wishes and interests of the majority of citizens. He must be someone who is in a position to account for monies appropriated for the projects he nominated for his constituency. It is not just enough to nominate projects, but the projects must be functional and effective in addressing constituency challenges, as well as being implemented in a value for money approach.

In our civil rule where there is a rampaging and powerful executive arm of government, it is imperative that the legislature, especially its leadership, is independent minded enough to exercise checks and balances on the executive arm of government, especially on the President.

Nigeria cannot afford a rubber stamp legislature that sees nothing wrong in the conduct and actions of the executive. In as much as there should be collaboration between the two arms of government for the country to move forward, it must be a collaboration that recognises the public interest. It is unfortunate that in Nigeria, the public interest is not the same as the interest of the executive.

The key poser arising is whether those who are jostling to lead the legislature at the federal level can be associated with any of these desirable qualities. All the news making the rounds is not about their telling Nigerians and fellow legislators about their qualities, accomplishments and their agenda for the legislature; it is about who has been anointed by the party leaders and who has not received the anointing.

This is absurd, shameful and will lead the federal legislature to a crisis. Even if those who anointed and their anointed succeed in taking the legislative leadership, their success will not be in the public interest as their service delivery will be poor.

It is not democratic for legislators to take dictations from certain godfathers who seek to control all aspects of our national life. If the party with the majority in the two chambers of the National Assembly wants to intervene, the best it can do is to zone the key positions in the legislature in an equitable manner and allow the legislators to now produce their leaders based on the agreed sharing formula. To micro-manage the legislature to the point of not just stating that a particular leadership position should come from a zone or state, but to drop the mantle on a particular legislator is dictatorial and should be resisted by all legislators of conscience.

For party leaders to now ask legislators who feel aggrieved with their decision to resign or leave the party is the height of arrogance as it is an attempt to play God. It will backfire and blow up in the face of the mere mortals who think they have assumed the status of God. The lessons of 2015 are not too distant. They are meant to be imbibed and used for problem solving.