- Nothing short of a thorough probe will do into the charges against Dogara and Jibrin
Last month, The 8th National Assembly celebrated its first anniversary with a sundry list of bills it had passed — of which the 2016 Budget was perhaps the most significant – the bills it was processing, the motions it had approved, and with a declaration of commitment to serving the public interest.
The speechifying and the self-adulation took place, however, under a dark cloud.
The President of the Senate, Dr Bukola Saraki, has been standing trial before the Code of Conduct Tribunal on a charge of perjury and has sought every opportunity to turn it into a circus, without vacating his exalted chair, and without the Senate requesting him to do so in keeping with the best practices.
As if that is not stain enough on the honour of the National Assembly, Dr Saraki and the Deputy Senate President, Ike Ekweremadu, have been arraigned before another court along with other officials, charged with forgery.
Again, instead of asking these officials to step aside while the trials last, Senate has desperately sought ways to squelch the process, including attempting to bully the Attorney-General of the Federation into discontinuing prosecution, and threatening to suspend those of its members who filed the legitimate complaint on which the indictments are grounded.
The cloud over the National Assembly has now darkened with recent disclosures that officials of its second chamber, the House of Representatives, padded the national budget with spending measures designed not to advance the public interest but to enrich and empower themselves.
Using underhanded methods, they insinuated into the budget an additional N480 billion in spending, at a time the national economy is reeling from the collapse of the oil market and lurching into a recession.
They arrive at this subversive consensus through a process reminiscent of a bazaar. Each member so minded conjures up a “constituency project”, and ensures funding for it under some omnibus head. But that is the only part of the process that may qualify for a low pass in transparency.
From then on, it is usually a descent into brazen abuse of office and platform. The member chooses the project and produces a contractor — a front, and not infrequently a close relation – to execute it. The contractor collects the earmarked amount from the agency into whose budget the project has been insinuated, and delivers it to the sponsor back in the House.
Rarely are the projects executed as specified, and more rarely still is anyone held to account. There is no mechanism to ensure compliance. The lawmaker is the originator and executor of the project as well as certifying authority.
This practice, it is necessary to state, did not begin with the 8th National Assembly. But, as the former Chair of the House Committee on Appropriations, Abdulmumin Jibrin has alleged, the present assembly has been following it in ways more brazen and ravenous.
Of the N480 billion smuggled into the budget, N40 billion was apparently set aside for just one official of the House of Representatives, to be dispensed on dubious projects in his domain, Jibrin said. This is one more indication of just how rife the system is with self-aggrandizement, if not outright corruption.
Fighting back, senior officials of the House claim that Jibrin, who has since been sacked as chairman of the appropriations committee of the house, was responsible for the padding. Jibrin has released some documents that apparently back his case, with a promise to release more. As the drama unfolded, security officials moved in and sealed off the secretariat of the committee on appropriations, apparently to secure documents and computer records that will be required in an investigation.
Nothing short of a full investigation into this tawdry business will do. The inquiry will have to go back to the time the practice started. Those who are found to have abused the public trust to enrich themselves should enjoy no parliamentary immunity for what is, at bottom, criminal behaviour.
It is time to return the National Assembly from the house of scandal it has become to the house of law it was meant to be.
