The lawmakers must subordinate their personal interest to that of the nation
After almost two months of forced adjournments, the National Assembly will resume plenary session today. Legislative activities in both chambers were put on hold in the wake of the leadership crisis in the All Progressives Congress (APC)-dominated parliament since inauguration on June 9 this year. The postponement was evidently to buy additional time within which the warring factions in the ruling APC were expected to sink their differences and put their house in order.
Ordinarily, the National Assembly should be in a hurry to steer actions for good governance. But the legislative arm has been a distraction and indeed an obstacle to progress. And even as members resume, the prospect for a resolution of the crisis still looks distant as the bickering over individual ambitions will still likely linger. The election of principal officers for both chambers has factionalised members of the party into camps.
It is even more unfortunate that the APC that worked so hard to wrestle power from the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) could not reconcile its members in furtherance of implementing its campaign agenda for change. This is deeply worrying for many Nigerians. “Some people sacrificed their lives for the present crop of leaders to be elected with the expectation that they will deliver on the mandates given to them and provide good leadership,” said Alhaji Mustapha Agwai II, the Emir of Lafia. “Recent events in the National Assembly are shameful. When will the crisis and struggle for power be over? People cannot wait anymore for change to take place.”
Indeed, except APC and its lawmakers are able to put the crisis behind them, the 8th Assembly may perhaps go down as the least productive. Not that the past ones did something to crow about as they all fell short of the expectations of the people to the extent that many now query the sense in keeping the legislators in office all year round. Others have decried the mediocre performance of our lawmakers in terms of the number and quality of their legislations for the betterment of the country in relation to the extravagant pay and allowances they draw from government coffers.
The essence of what is glibly described as the “legislative power of the purse” is for the lawmakers to expand their democratic leverage on behalf of citizens by serving as watchdogs in the way and manner in which national resources are utilised. But this function can only be properly undertaken by a transparent and accountable legislative institution which unfortunately our National Assembly has not been doing. A factionalised one will even do much less.
Where a body that is constitutionally empowered to have its eyes at every sector of our national life is most often deeply involved in unwholesome practices, then there is a serious problem. The National Assembly has indeed been found to compromise its time-honoured duty of ensuring that propriety becomes the order of the day in the art of governance; it has been found wanting to the extent that it seeks to place itself above measures that would enthrone accountability, all in the name of separation of powers.
As they go back to the chambers today, we are constrained to ask our lawmakers to begin to take their integrity much more seriously as they exercise their constitutionally guaranteed powers. For them to earn the respect of the populace, they cannot continue to act as if they are above the law. They must subordinate their personal interest to that of the nation. It is therefore in their best interest to resolve the lingering crisis and focus on the task for which they were elected: making laws for the good governance of the nation.
