We erroneously thought at its inception, the outgoing 9th National Assembly was going to be better in stewardship than the 8th Assembly piloted by Sen. Bukola Saraki and Yakubu Dogara in robust legislation. Alas! We were damn wrong forgetting that its principal officers were party loyalists and sycophants of the executive handpicked and hoisted on the Assembly for business as usual to fester. Honorable Gudaji Kazaure said it all in his several unguided public statements and body language.
What we have today, are contractors rather than legislators more occupied with how to win government contracts than how to checkmate the executive. We have thieves of constituency projects and zonal intervention programmes not lawmakers. We have jesters and clowns garbed in legislative attires than the lawmakers we expected.
We have noisemakers not lawmakers stationed in air conditioned talking shops. The essence of establishing Constituency Offices in Federal Constituencies is defeated by the gluttonous lawmakers who avoid their constituents for fear of the obvious.
Democracy is a real world political system with its deep roots in antiquity. Although coined from the Greek word called “demokratia”, in the middle of the 5th century BCE, details of the centres of origin and dispersal are still largely embedded in obscurity. Thus, for example, elements of political systems broadly similar to it (democracy) existed in some African societies long before the phenomena of Asianization, Arabianization, and Europeanization. Such African democracies (with some slight modifications with passage of time) exist up to this moment in some parts of Nigeria.
Every rural or urban community has local representational democracy through traditional or community leadership nomenclature.
The bottom line is the engendering of a higher quality of life and a greater degree of happiness and/or welfare, of the masses of the people. This is through the lens of representational participation, especially now that most societies are transforming from a product determined economy to an information/high tech economy. Simply put, democracy is rooted in the rule of the people through a popular representation as opposed to an elite group of citizens.
In many African traditions, the traditional ruler is the president with a council of chiefs or title holders as representatives of the extended family groupings. This is comparable to ministers in modern day politics. They also have some amount of judicial powers to exercise.
The Nigerian political class with a special emphasis on the legislators has no respect for democratic principles and by extension, to even the ordinary people who voted them to power including the political parties they belong. It seems to me, that the executive arm of government is solely in-charge, while the other two organs (legislature and judiciary) are in most cases, mere puppet organs with strings.
The aspirations and sensitivities of the people mean little or nothing to the National Assembly members. Therefore, ours is a caricatured democracy. The basic values and assumptions upon which democracy was originally constructed are being practically called into question in this country. In actuality, there is no separation of powers. No impeachments or recall of any offending elective person.
This is a good example of serious dereliction of duty by the legislature and the voters whose franchise the elected abuse with impunity. By this attitude, there are no checks and balances. This lacuna paves way for the abysmal performance of the executive arm of government.
It is too easily forgotten, that man is a corrupt animal. However, leaders tend to be more prone to corruption than the led. This is because they are in charge of the distribution of the commonwealth of a group of people at any point in time and space.
Painfully, this commonwealth is generated by the agricultural and industrial proletariat. Although impeachment or recall exercise is a tortuous path, lawmakers and the electorates have no choice but to tread it with diligence and unalloyed patriotism in the interest of the common good. Glossing over impeachment or recall does the Nigerian people, a great disservice in a myriad of ways.
For instance, the American Congress in history has so far impeached three presidents for certified acts of misconduct, or the other. In Nigeria, Kaduna State House of Assembly was the first to have impeached an elected governor, Balarabe Musa in the second republic.
About five deputy governors have so far been impeached according to the records with some returned to office through the courts.
In the case of the United States, Andrew Johnson was dealt with according to the American Constitution in 1868. Bill Clinton in 1998, Donald Trump was charged with impeachable offences twice in 2019 and 2021. However, the Senate acquitted him in 2020. In 2021, he was charged for insurrection against the government.
But trial commenced when Trump’s tenure was about to expire. This is the general global grammar of representational democracy. President Fernando Lugo of Paraguay was impeached by Congress in 2012, due to acts of nepotism and insecurity among other infractions of the country’s rules and regulations.
The Nigerian case is different as the Senate hardly talks or points out any committed impeachable offence of the executive despite the glaring poor performance for fear of insubordination. One concomitant effect of this scenario is the absence of peace and progress in the land. Impeachment exercise in today’s Nigeria stops at the state level. That is “dem-all-crazy” not democracy.
State Assemblies as rubber stamps of the governors also need to understand the essence of their being in the legislature and do more to correct some corrupt and power-drunk governors. There should be no more space for politics of lies and deception.
Leaders need to bury their pride and go to the remotest villages and cities especially in the northern part of the country to learn some of the fundamentals of representational democracy. The power of a ruler derives from the people, usually through the lens of traditional rulers among other structures.
It is time for Nigeria to begin to craft its own authentic political system of ideologies based on our time honored, indigenous epistemologies or African thought. The present Nigerian National Assembly is already in a coma at the Intensive Care Unit of Aso Rock Villa Clinic. Who is that foolish Doctor that will attempt to resuscitate it?
Politicians warming up for the 10th Assembly have many rivers to cross. It seems to me, that the highly traumatized, insulted Nigerians are no longer going to accommodate or tolerate uncaring, sentimental, self-seeking and reckless political leaders who have become huge parasites on the society. More criminally minded than the dreaded insurgents, bandits and kidnappers combined.
Legislators have to be kept on their toes not to derail. Under performing or non performing ones should be asked to return to their communities through recall. The “special” brutal treatment given to a Niger State legislator, for not representing the people adequately, should be extended to other lawmakers even before they exit in 2023 as a deterrent to incoming ones.
As from 2023, our prayers should be matched with actions in the interest of the common good. God is here in Nigeria and not relocating out while to our problems keep on piling unsolved due to our insincerity, purposefulness and deceitful mechanism with pretentious fear of God. In actuality, Providence has given us a considerable amount of intellect and opportunities to explore and exploit our local socio-material geography to His great admiration. It is time for Nigerians to distinguish between illusion and reality.
No country experiences sustainable peace and progress in the face of docile, almost completely disorientated followership. Nigerian parliamentarians should begin to demonstrate that they are not rubber stamps for reactionary decisions and policies made by the executive. The National Assembly is neither a theatre nor a rendezvous for relaxation and/or sleeping and snoring, as if we are unserious conquered lot.
The 10th National Assembly must be a hallowed chamber for fine grained deliberations, based on national thought as opposed to primordial impulses. In this context, political merchants and/or ruffians and the semi-illiterates lacking exposure and intellect should not be allowed to pollute our leadership space for whatever reason. We have tolerated enough of disappointments and frustrations. Enough is enough as our age-old national heritage coupled with indigenous values rapidly disintegrates.
Muhammad is a commentator on national issues
