From the judgement of a Federal High Court
sitting in Lagos which orders President Muhammadu Buhari to “urgently instruct
security and anti-corruption agencies to forward to him reports of their
investigations into allegations of padding and stealing of some N481 billion
from the 2016 budget by some principal officers of the National Assembly” to
damaging allegations by both former Finance Minister and Coordinating Minister
for the Economy, Dr Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala and former Independent National
Electoral Commission (INEC) Chairman, Prof. Attahiru Jega, the spotlight is now
on our federal lawmakers who are being perceived as no more than cheap
bribe-takers.
The situation is not helped by the
widespread knowledge that the National Assembly has become the watering hole of
high-maintenance ex-governors, semi-literate political contractors, wanted
international criminal suspects and some yesterday’s men who are now in
desperate need of economic empowerment. Yet, in a situation where lawmakers behave
like gangsters, the various executive bodies like ministries and agencies will
begin to see their assignments in transactional terms as oversight becomes a
ritual of appeasement of the greed of committee members and the budgeting
process, which ordinarily should be a serious assignment, degenerates into an
annual bazaar.
The whole controversy started with
Okonjo-Iweala’s latest book titled, ‘Fighting corruption is dangerous: The
story behind the headlines’, where she revealed how the National Assembly was
given an additional vote of N17 billion to secure the passage of the 2015
appropriation bill. “In the case of the N17 billion, the book does not talk of
bribe. It indicates that lawmakers increased the budget by N17 billion and we
had to accept that to move on; hence, the term ‘price to pay’. The reason for
discussing what happened is that this approach needs to change” Okonjo-Iweala
clarified, in response to sensational newspaper headlines that did not
accurately reflect what she wrote in the book that I have also read. |
| *Senate President Saraki and House Speaker Dogara |
While the public was still digesting that furore, Jega added fuel to the fire
by accusing National Assembly members of engaging in corrupt practices in their
oversight responsibility. More striking is the fact that he made the accusation
in the presence of the entire leadership of the three arms of government in Nigeria
Taken together, the Federal High Court
decision and the revelations by both Okonjo-Iweala and Jega speak to the lack
of transparency and accountability in the budgeting process. But if we point
fingers only in the direction of the National Assembly members we will be
missing the point and would never get any solution to a problem that has festered
for years. If we must be honest, both the executive and the legislature are
guilty when it comes to promoting private interests in budgets since they all
insert and locate projects in their various communities or that of their
spouses, friends or political benefactors.
First, let us deal with Okonjo-Iweala’s
allegation. I recall that in July 2012, the then Finance Minister had a similar
confrontation with the lawmakers over the budget for that year.
Co-incidentally, it was Hon. Femi Gbajabiamila (then in his capacity as House
Minority Leader) who also responded by accusing Okonjo-Iweala of double
standards. “N6 billion was allocated for water projects. N1.3 Billion of the N6
billion was for the Finance Minister’s village, another N1.5 billion for the
president’s place and N3 billion for the rest of the country. Yet she
(Okonjo-Iweala) is not elected but you say those elected should not bring
development through the budget to their areas” said Gbajabiamila in July 2012
while defending the National Assembly.
Indeed, the indiscriminate siting of
projects based on questionable criteria is one of the biggest forms of
corruption in the country aside the fact that it is responsible for the waste
with which the national landscape is strewn and this is not restricted to the
federal government. It is in fact worse in the states where many of the
universities are located in the villages of the governors who initiated them.
At the federal level, the location of projects also has more to do with where
powerful politicians and civil servants hail from than the requirements of
national priority and value for money. That, for instance, explains why the
federal government would build a Helipad in Daura, Katsina State
Meanwhile, in defending the water project in
her village for which N1.3 billion was allocated in the 2012 budget,
Okonjo-Iweala had argued that it was initiated in 2006 by the lawmaker
representing her Federal constituency. “The project in question, a dam, was not
brought to Ogwashi Uku by me but by a former colleague of the honourable
members who was representing the community in the House. But it’s not right to
distort facts just to make a point,” she said.
While the lawmakers have been up in arms
against Okonjo-Iweala, the antics of some of them neither help their cause nor
give any ‘Assurance’ that they are sensitive to public mood. When, for
instance, you hear that a principal officer of the National Assembly is
competing with Davido on which G Wagon is more expensive to dash a spouse/girlfriend
celebrating her birthday, you can only begin to question the source of such
wealth that could be spent so recklessly, especially at a period like this in
the nation.
Now to Jega’s accusation: Demanding
gratifications from heads of federal government agencies, for which a serving
minister was once removed and tried, has for long been a recurrent allegation
in the National Assembly. Yet, not a single lawmaker has been made to suffer
any consequence. That actually is the problem because while the National
Assembly is ever quick to suspend members who make accusations that they
consider unsavoury to their collective integrity, they never punish those whose
conduct also bring shame on the institution. Rather, in almost all the
instances, they would do everything to protect such members. Two cases bear out
this contrasting posture.
In 2005, a member of the House of Representatives,
Hon. Haruna Yerima, publicly accused many of his colleagues of demanding (and
receiving) bribes from ministers and heads of government agencies as well as
corporate bodies. “Whoever tells you there is no corruption in the House is in
fact corrupt. Ministers and heads of parastatals are often asked to bring money
by some honourable members so that their budgets can be passed. Most of us are
contractors. Most of us come here to make money. Most of our debates are beer
parlour debates. No research. We argue like ordinary people on the streets. Our
debate is shallow” said Yerima.
As to be expected, Yerima was suspended
despite explaining that he did not mean to impugn the integrity of the whole
House but rather to expose some individuals who were giving the legislature a
bad name. “I did not talk about institutional corruption but individuals and
committees. I insist they are corrupt. If I am crucified over it, so be it,”
said Yerima at the time. But in the usual ‘trial’ that followed on the floor of
the House, the then Deputy House Speaker, Austin Opara recommended that Yerima
be taken to “a psychiatric hospital for examination” before he added, “it was
in the same manner he lost his job at the Nigerian Defence Academy (NDA) Kaduna
as a lecturer.”
In contrast to the manner in which Yerima
was dealt with by his colleagues, the April 2012 public altercation between Hon
Herman Hembe, then chair of the House committee on Capital Markets and Other
Institutions and Ms Arunma Oteh, the Security and Exchange Commission (SEC)
Director General at the time, provided a different outcome. This followed the
decision by the House committee to hold a public hearing “to identify the
manifest causes of the markets’ near collapse with a view to finding lasting
solutions.”
Although the session began with members
expressing genuine concerns over the manner in which private investors were
being short-changed by the banks and the fact that some companies actually came
on the stock exchange for a brief period, garnered considerable funds from
investors and then disappeared, the hearing turned ugly when Hembe decided to
attack the person of Oteh: “You stayed in a hotel for eight months and spent
over N30 million. In one day you spent N85, 000 on food at the hotel. These are
the things we should look at to see how you will regulate a market that is
collapsing…”
Unprepared for such an attack, Oteh tried to
deflect the question but when she came back the next day, she turned the table
on her accuser: “Mr. Chairman, I question your credibility to preside over this
probe. On 20th October last year (2011), you were given a cheque to travel to
the Dominican Republic
An apparently rattled Hembe tried to bully
Oteh into facing what he said were the real issues but he failed miserably.
“The issue of corruption or no corruption we should put it aside…I think we
should concentrate on the major issue here. Let’s see how we can forge ahead
with the hearing and achieve something before the end of the day. I will Chair
this committee to the end of this public hearing” said Hembe who was removed
from the assignment by the obviously embarrassed House leadership after that
encounter. But predictably, he served no punishment.
In dealing with the Hembe issue on this page
in March 2012, I wrote: “It should be clear to the National Assembly that the
incestuous relationship between their committees and the Ministries,
Departments and Agencies (MDAs) on which they have oversight responsibilities
cannot continue. It is an open secret that many of our law makers are the
leading contractors in some of these MDAs where they deploy their oversight
powers as a weapon of blackmail and intimidation.”
For sure, there are many honest members in
the National Assembly just as it is to be expected that in a gathering of such
large number, there would be all sorts of characters. But we should also not
gloss over the allegation by Jega. The brazen manner in which some lawmakers
demand bribes from agencies of government in the course of budget defence cannot
be allowed to continue unchecked. The challenge is that because there are no
sanctions for bad behaviour, these notorious members (most of who are known to
their colleagues) are never checked and thus continue to give the legislature a
bad name.
As guest speaker at the second anniversary
of the 8th National Assembly on 9th June last year, I had the privilege of
sharing with the House of Representatives members my thoughts on their negative
image perception against the background that the legislature is the scaffolding
that supports the polity and once that structure is contaminated, democracy is
endangered. Although some members were uncomfortable with my presentation,
Speaker Yakubu Dogara was very gracious afterwards and I believe it would serve
the National Assembly well to reflect on some of what I said on that occasion: https://www.thisdaylive.com/index.php/2017/06/09/image-perception-of-the-legislature-causes-and-possible-solutions/.
Meanwhile, I sympathise with the National
Assembly because their situation is also peculiar. Their entire budget, as big
as it may seem, is not even up to what a chief executive of just one agency
under the federal ministry of transport controls and is but a tiny fraction of
what the Group Managing Director of the Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation
(NNPC) can play with in an environment where politics is dictated by patronage.
Yet, their constituents expect them to build hospitals, erect schools and foot
personal expenses, including the wedding ceremonies of their children. But
while they deal with these existential challenges, it is also important for
them to understand their critical role and why public attention is always on
them.
The principle of separation of powers which
defines the strength of our model of democracy demands a very strong and
resourceful legislature. It also requires that legislators be above board,
enlightened even, in the pursuit of their self-interest. In addition to
carrying out routine oversight functions, the legislature is closer to the
judiciary in that it is supposed to ensure that the executive maintains order
in accordance with the laws it makes.
Given the foregoing, the various allegations
of outright extortion, bribery and dubious financial racketeering by our
legislators since 1999 have deepened the general negative perception of Nigeria Nigeria
That is a growing vote of no confidence that
should worry the National Assembly members.
*Adeniyi is the Chairman of ThisDay Newspaper’s
Editorial Board
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