A very deep thought into the recent comments credited to Senate President Godswill Akpabio that lawmakers, referring to members of the legislature, are not elected to fight executive might, in some dimensions, be proved not absolutely correct. Indeed, to fiercely fight against a reckless Executive is the Legislature’s raison d’etre.
The beauty of the Executive Presidential system of government lies in its ability to rest absolute powers on the executive. This enables the Executive to be quick and decisive in crucial matters. America’s former President, Harry Truman, took a decision to use nuclear weapons against two Japanese cities, Hiroshima and Nagasaki, to end the World War II which was devastating the globe. He did not wait for the Congress or Senate to endorse it. The late Truman popularized the expression, “the buck stops on the president’s desk.”
It is also this absolutism that destroyed the beautiful executive presidential system, the fact that it is highly prone to abuse of office at various levels, state or national. An old saying goes that power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.
For this reason, designers of the system relied upon the Legislature and the Judiciary which are parts of a mechanism called separation of powers, to do the checks and balances in a democracy. In other words, these two arms which are equal and indeed opposite in nature to the Executive have the onerous responsibility to draw back an Executive President or governor that tends to drift towards dictatorship.
Against this background, one is wont to hold suspect a cozy relationship between the Executive and the Legislature in particular, the kind that exists today in Nigeria. Therefore, the Senate President’s statement could mean that he is unaware of his primary responsibility. This is unfortunate and points straight to the source of Nigeria’s political and administrative cataclysm.
Curiously, the echelon of Nigeria’s Legislature is ignorant that it was elected to fight the Executive whenever it detects traces of totalitarianism. A Legislature in that frame of mind will be blind to cases of despotism. We have, therefore, found the explanation to the ease which many believe to be a constitutional breach committed by the President Bola Ahmed Tinubu administration, recently. The President and his team arbitrarily suspended the elected governor of Rivers State as well as the state’s House of Assembly members.
The action, carried out in defiance of entreaties for the government to see reasons not to, got the stamp of the National Assembly that approved a state of emergency by voice votes while the Constitution required two-thirds majority to sail through. How was the two-thirds majority determined?
If the Legislature is not fighting the Executive in its excesses, then it is not doing its job.
“When elected into the National Assembly, whether in the Senate or the House of Representatives, your constituents will not give you boxing gloves. It’s not a boxing tournament. You are there to work in a bipartisan manner for the interest of Nigeria,” Akpabio was quoted in a statement by presidential spokesman, Bayo Onanuga.
Seemingly impressive rhetorics! On the contrary, a mandate to sit in the legislative chamber is the boxing glove handed over to the politician by his or her constituency to checkmate the Executive on the chessboard of politics when there are attempts to make away illegally with people’s patrimony, or when attempts to smuggle in anti-people policies into the statute books are made. Certainly, the days are bad on that chessboard and the aim of an average powerful man is usually to grab the sole of the country and run with it. A Legislature that does not stand in as a stabilizer and rather chooses to compromise is a failed one.
Indeed, the days of Bukola Saraki as the Senate President appears to be the most glorious days of Nigerian legislature in recent times. Were it now, attempts to seize Nigeria through programmes such as RUGA, Water Resources Bill, among others, would have sailed through so easily. Thanks to the Kwara-born politician who withstood all persecutions to stall those obnoxious bills.
Akpabio maintained, in the feature documentary set to mark two years of the Bola Tinubu administration, that the Assembly’s role is to scrutinise, amend, and support executive actions that align with national interest.
“Our job is to make sure we cross the T’s and dot the I’s to assist the President in having the best for the Nigerian population,” he was quoted as saying. Were the t’s not being crossed and the i’s not dotted in the military era where there was the Supreme Military Council, with the federal and state commissioners and the Judiciary at work? What is then the difference between then and now? Why did we clamour for a democracy if not to have a voice in the running of our affairs? A collusion between the “voices” we elected and the Executive to corner the resources for their private use to the detriment of the people amounts to betrayal.
The complication of the Nigerian democracy is in the active cooperation and connivance of the executive and the Legislature in the monetization of the Judiciary. This leaves the masses out of the scheme of things. What matters today is no longer the needs of a generality of the people of Nigerian but how to cater for the needs of the members of the Executive, the Legislature and the Judiciary.
As it stands in Nigeria today, the politician serves in the house of assembly where he legislates on fat and juicy benefits for the governor. He finally contests and becomes a governor along the line, and after serving as governor he retires to the Senate. At the Senate, he enjoys the benefits he gets as former lawmaker, former governor and eventually all the paraphernalia that surrounds the members of the Green Chambers such as yearly change of furniture, cars, homes etc, etc.
Any wonder that at a time like this, the Executive would decide to spend trillions out of the common purse building a coastal road while the inland roads are in dilapidated states. What about the multi-trillion-naira houses for the President and his vice outside the nation’s capital territory at a time the economy is in distress? The Legislature are compensated with freedom to pad the budget as well as exotic cars and all kinds of luxury items. Legislation assumes a new dimension as discussions on what touches the lawmakers more than the people. Simple laws to get elections right are glossed over to make room for manipulations in a digital era. It looks like a massive mesh of a mafia conglomerate milking the nation dry.
Mr. Senate President, lawmakers were not elected to cooperate with the executive but to confront it when it deviates from the norms. Refer to the clause that stipulates oversight functions. If you, as a legislature at any level, are not fighting the Executive, you are good for nothing.
Dr. Odu can be reached through [email protected] or SMS 0701672929
