“Even among thieves, there should be honour”. That was the tragicomedy one-liner Senator Francis Arthur Nzeribe relied on in 2002 when he slammed a N300 million bribery scandal on the Senate. It has been further analysed to imply that there ought to be a code of conduct – even if it is a mere professional courtesy or a complete set of in-house rules – in a group, band, or guild of thieves working in cooperation.
“There is no honour among thieves”, on the contrary, is used to express situations when such systems break down, or the greedy nature of thieves interferes with their code of ethics. Some say it is also used to express that the breaking down of such a code of ethics seems inevitable. We must state succinctly, at this point, that our reference to the Nzeribe remark here is in no way meant to ridicule or embarrass the upper legislature. Recourse to it became necessary to buttress the dearth of integrity in some State Houses of Assembly. Indeed, the extent some State Houses of Assembly are being ridiculed by some of their perfidious ‘Honourable Members’ who, in the end, sell off the independence and integrity of their chambers to the executive arm of government in the name of impeachment, ostensibly for immediate or promised future gains, has become most sickening.
The 1999 Constitution (as altered), in Section 92 (2) (c), prescribes that the Speaker or Deputy Speaker of a State House of Assembly shall vacate office if removed from office by a resolution of the House supported by the votes of not less than two-third majority of the members. But of late, the process of impeachment by state lawmakers amply casts them as a gang doused with impunity and ignorant of what quorum implies in the conduct of their routine legislative affairs. They present to the public the image of robots out there to rubber-stamp the whims and caprices of state governors or other political big wigs, no matter how absurd. In July 2013, five out of the 32 members of the Rivers State House of Assembly purportedly impeached the Speaker, Mr. Otelemabe Amachree; while in Ekiti State, the Speaker, Dr. Adewale Omirin, was in November 2014, impeached by seven out of the 26 members of the House. In the twilight of the era of former Governor Sullivan Chime of Enugu State last year, nine members of the House, out of a total of 24, impeached Eugene Odoh, the Speaker, for example. In all such cases, the state legislature not only compromises its independence and the provisions of the law, but hits up the polity. Kogi State just joined the bandwagon. The State House of Assembly had a total of 25 members, five of whose elections were nullified by the Court of Appeal.
The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has not conducted fresh polls to fill the vacant seats. Therefore, only 20 members are legitimate members of the House; and two-third of 20 would come to 13 members and some fractions. But just five members of the Kogi State House of Assembly purportedly sacked the Speaker, Momoh Jimoh Lawal, a couple of days ago. Friday Sani, who emerged as the new Majority Leader following the charade called impeachment, was quoted as saying only seven members were required to form the required quorum. Former Senate President, David Mark, shortly before he left office last June, drew attention to the ongoing shame in state Houses of Assembly.
Speaking at an induction course organised by the National Institute of Legislative Studies (NILS) for newly-elected state legislators in Abuja, Mark said the general impression remained that State Houses of Assembly were appendages of Government Houses or governors. He berated state lawmakers that hold their sessions in the Council Chambers of Government Houses, use their official symbol of authority – the Mace – outside their legitimate chambers or as a weapon to fight in time of crisis, or borrow same from Local Government Councils to conduct their affairs. Reports indicate that the House of Representatives has raised a 10- man panel to investigate the shambolic removal of the Kogi Speaker.
We implore the National Assembly to use the opportunity to impress it on all state lawmakers, not just the Kogi breed, that they are brazenly trivializing and making a laughing stock of the impeachment process. Should impeachment become inevitable, they should embrace it in line with constitutional stipulations, not with impunity. State lawmakers should realise that the public expect their collaboration with the executive arm of government for good governance, and not their complicity to perpetrate frauds.
