By Tonnie Iredia
For the better part of the last two decades, I had cause to severally disagree or oppose the viewpoints, statements or actions of Adams Oshiomhole either as President of the Nigerian Labour Congress (NLC), or Governor of Edo State or National Chairman of the All Progressives Congress (APC).
In order not to belabour the issues of the past, I will only just say we fell apart many times and quite often used the media to put our different positions in the public domain. It is therefore quite likely that many people who knew about our sour relationship would be surprised to read this piece which eulogises Oshiomhole’s commendable contributions to debates in the Senate, especially in the last couple of weeks.
The point to be made and quickly
too is that the motivation for this article is the need for a critic to
endeavour at all times, to appreciate every good message no matter who the
messenger is. In other words, a sound media professional ought to separate a
messenger from his message so as to avoid the tendency to be fault-finding.
That was precisely what influenced this writer while watching the contributions
of Senators to a motion on the unfortunate deaths caused by the attack of
insurgents on the town of Gworza in Bornu state three weeks ago. During the
debate, many Senators followed the usual pattern of saying the same things over
and over ago. While some were calling for more attention such as working on the
road networks or prioritizing the use of technology such as drones as well as
the need for the military to be more proactive, it was Oshiomhole that hit the
nail on its forehead.
The military are better trained than the rest of us
on subjects such as warfare and counter-terrorism. The role of the Senate
therefore is not to teach the military what to do about those subjects but to
appropriate sufficient funding for the recommended military operations. The
other fundamental mandate of the military is to undertake oversight to find out
how the huge sums appropriated by the legislature are expended. It is for this
reason that the legislature has a committee to supervise every public function.
But an honest review of events in Nigeria since democracy was restored in 1999
would show that oversight by the legislature is convoluted by corruption. The
committees do nothing about investigating how funds were utilized, they only
hold courts where they keep threatening to issue warrants of arrest to
officials who decline to attend legislative sessions to which they are invited.
No one is ever arrested as the
threats are simply a strategy to intimidate public officials into bribing
committee members especially their leaders. On the few occasions that
legislators tried to do real oversight by carrying supervision to the point of
assignment, they ended up briefing the media on how satisfied they were with
the organisations visited in addition to their firm resolve to ensure more
funds are made available to the concerned agencies in the next budget. But do
the huge sums budgeted for the military annually get to them in full? Are
monies received by the military used for the exact purposes for which they were
appropriated? Having affirmed that the funds are used majorly for
non-essentials and ego projects, Oshiomhole called for a more effective
oversight of military expenditures.
It is not only Oshiomhole that knows that oversight functions are poorly undertaken in Nigeria; many citizens are also aware. From 2003 -2008, when I served as Chief Executive of the Nigerian Television Authority (NTA), I received zero allocation for capital projects because I refused to meet financial demands of legislators of the relevant committees of the National Assembly. This was what first occurred to me when I heard that Oshiomhole’s fellow legislators rejected his call for a thorough investigation of what the military does with its funding. The position of Senators was not surprising because many of them behave as if they are not answerable to anyone. In other climes, citizens would have demanded to know those who voted against such a proactive call.
While commending Oshiomhole for his patriotic call, it is also noted that the
Senate President Godswill Akpabio was so disgusted with the reaction of the
Senators that he decided to repeat the question which was more loudly answered
in the negative. Big pity, Akpabio could do nothing thereafter. In the
circumstance, someone needs to tell Nigerian Senators that our citizens are
greatly disappointed by their lackadaisical approach towards oversight
functions which ought to be used to place an effective check on policy
implementation in the country. The media and civil society groups must find a
way of holding the legislature accountable.
The other subject for which Oshiomhole deserves commendation is his firm stand against the creation of additional agencies that have duplicated functions. This time, credit must also be given to other Senators such as Natasha Akpoti-Uduaghan (PDP, Kogi) and Victor Umeh (Anambra LP) who were reported to have similarly opposed the penchant of their col- leagues for patronising daily bills for creating unviable agencies.
It was as a result of
their efforts that the Senate rejected a bill seeking to establish the National
Road Transport Council of Nigeria whose anticipated mandate is to regulate road
transport and the transportation profession in Nigeria. If a new body is set up
for this purpose, should we not abolish the Federal Road Safety Commission
FRSC?
It is transparently irrational
to have more than one agency performing same task. This is because it amounts
to a waste of precious time spent on unhealthy jurisdictional claims. The more
annoying of such struggles is the one where agencies exploit Nigerians in
subjects like the inspection of vehicle particulars and licences. It also
explains why our government has been unable to cut down its unwieldy size
despite her several moves to implement the report of the Oronsaye Panel set up
during the Jonathan led-government to reduce the size of government. While the
executive branch has continued to prevaricate and consistently moved one step
forward and three backwards, the legislature which says it is committed to
collaborating with the executive has continued to use bills to create new
agencies in the country.
What is however inexplicable, is
the fact whenever some persuasive contributions are made on a subject, majority
of Senators behave as if they are absent minded by producing a voice vote that
runs counter to reasoning. Last month, a bill for an Act to Establish the
National Institute for Educational Planning and Administration and another bill
to Establish the Federal University of Applied Sciences Manchok, Kaduna State
were introduced to the Senate. In his contribution, Senator Oshiomhole drew
attention to the fact that passing the bills would adversely affect the
capacity of government to provide capital allocations to agencies because
recurrent expenditure would have exhausted government resources for the sector.
Although many members nodded in agreement with the former Edo governor, the
bills were still passed for 2nd reading.
It is thus time to call on
members of the National Assembly to put a halt to their practice of bringing
agencies into existence through the passage of bills. For an agency to be
viable and indeed for it to survive over time, there are many other things that
ought to be done before a law is passed to bring legitimacy to bear on the
concerned agency. For example, the Senate in 2022 sought to introduce six new
campuses of the Nigerian Law School without the involvement of the relevant
authority- the Council for Legal Education. The six campuses were to be sited
in the villages of certain Senators. No feasibility studies were carried out to
ascertain the suitability of the locations just as none of the villages had
adequate infrastructure to support the birth of the schools.
Now that Adams Oshiomhole has regained his tenacity
as an activist, there is doubt if it is fair for us to look forward to when he
can boldly tell the nation about the real take-homepay (not just salaries) of
our legislators. If he tries it, he may not survive the hammer of the Senate.
Another activist, Shehu Sani who tried it some years ago was to later confess
that he was lucky to be rescued by some powerful forces.
*Dr. Iredia is a commentator on public issues
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