We have no reason to believe that the National Assembly has departed from what it was in the First National Assembly when the Senate and the House of Representatives sat for an average of 2.2 hours and 1.55 hours per day respectively, in a country where the average worker is required by law to put in eight hours of work per day.
Is it also by accident that the chambers of the National Assembly are only full on the day of inauguration while on subsequent days, the chambers are virtually empty?
By Hon. Josef Omorotionmwan
Everywhere, there is a negative perception of the legislator. For many people, to be a legislator is to be self-serving and perhaps even corrupt and contemptible. The legislator finds himself between the devil and the deep blue sea.
For instance, where he chooses to serve gratis or where his pay is very low, people’s conclusion would be that he must be getting a lot of “paje” (bribe) by the side.
But if his pay is too high, people’s assessment is about the same: he is regarded as a tax-eating parasite – underworked and overpaid.
People normally regard politicians, particularly legislators, the same way straight women regard prostitutes – with a sullen envy and with the confidence that if they wished to go commercial, they would do better.
Ordinarily, a man with a running stomach should be the best judge of how to bend down. But not so with our legislators who, in the face of public opprobrium, relish doing things most outrageous and ludicrous, thus playing into the hands of the people.
Quite often, legislators abdicate their responsibilities, perhaps oblivious of the fact that long years of neglect of one’s responsibility may deprive a man’s mind of flexibility and he may not realize at times that the welfare of the nation may be preserved only by methods that are hostile to one’s personal interest.
Sometimes, one sees our legislators as a bunch of unserious people. On the final day of the Seventh National Assembly, we saw how the Senate stampeded itself into galloping through 46 bills in less than 10 minutes, in the name of passage.
Who did they expect to take them serious in their most unserious situation? Were they expecting us to applaud them for doing in ten minutes what they had four long years to do?
Obviously, one critical element in achieving a satisfactory output of legislative business is the total number of hours for which the legislature sits.
For instance, the British House of Commons sits for an average of seven and a half hours per day (including the shorter Friday sessions) for the five days per week for which it normally sits.
Although the National Assembly is compelled by the Constitution to sit for a minimum of 181 days a year, nothing compels it to sit for any number of hours per day.
We have no reason to believe that the National Assembly has departed from what it was in the First National Assembly when the Senate and the House of Representatives sat for an average of 2.2 hours and 1.55 hours per day respectively, in a country where the average worker is required by law to put in eight hours of work per day.
Is it also by accident that the chambers of the National Assembly are only full on the day of inauguration while on subsequent days, the chambers are virtually empty?
In the final analysis, a legislator is judged by the quality of bills and legislative measures he introduces, not by the so-called constituency projects. Every superior legislative measure is named after the legislator forever.
The Constituency project is either for the Federal or State government and any legislator who labels same as his project is merely stealing by sign posts.
For the Politicians, it has become another day, another scandal. Not too long ago, they pre-occupied us with the N2 million per day, which the National Assembly approved for the President for entertainment as a prelude for the provision of N114, 000 per day for each member of the National Assembly as lunch allowance.
As at 2007, this meant some N21 billion annually down the drain! Current figures must be nearer the roof-tops.
The current scandal is on the provision of close to N10 billion for the members’ wardrobe allowance. And this is coming at a time of our greatest economic down-turn when many States are at the brink of liquidation, unable to pay staff salaries.
New figures have just been released on a few items. Each Senator will get the following allowances: N4,052,800 (Housing), N6,079,200 (Furniture), N8,105,600 (Vehicle); while each Member of the House of Representatives will get N3,970,425 (Housing), N5,955,637 (Furniture) N7,940,850.50 (Vehicle).
In the abstraction, we talk of open government. We envision jumbo pay for government officials. Truly, we may never know how much they really earn in salaries and other bogus allowances, all because we run government as a secret cult.
Today, the annual salary of an American President is $400,000 and this is known to American citizens, even those of pre-school age.
If the salary has to be increased, Americans must be informed and told why. But here in Nigeria, everyone must be kept in the dark, guessing.
Again, accountability must be all-inclusive. There is something wrong with that system in which at the end of the maximum stay of eight years in Government House, the Governor heads for jail while the legislators who gave him his annual appropriations walk our streets in unfettered freedom.
A system is a chain which can only be as strong as its weakest link. The approval of this year’s budget presupposes that the legislators are satisfied with what the governor did with last year’s appropriation. That is an essence of legislative oversight of the administration.
In the circumstance, it is doubtful how much change President Muhammadu Burhari’s administration will bring about.
The legislators who are supposed to be the major drivers of the change we desire are clinging tenaciously to the past. “Do as I say and not as I do” is hardly the stuff of which real change is made.
In this era of change, so-called, the President knows he can no longer decree a thing and it shall come to pass.
By now, we should be hearing the drum-beats from every direction – the President and his party, the National Assembly, the Revenue Mobilization Allocation and Fiscal Commission, RMAFC, etc. – signaling that what government officials get must be what the economy can sustain. Rather, the stench emanating from the National Assembly is nauseating!
Hon. Josef Omorotionmwan is a public affairs analyst and Chairman, Board of Directors, Edo Broadcasting Service. He can be reached at: joligien@yahoo.com
