|
PeeCeeJay By Jideofor Adibe
Re-thinking the National Assembly Twitter: @JideoforAdibe
The inspiration for this piece came from a conversation with an elder statesman who felt it was time for President Buhari to ‘sanitize’ the National Assembly. Reminding me that former President Obasanjo had recently accused the National Assembly of corruption and that former CBN Governor Lamido Sanusi had also alleged that as much as 25 per cent of the federal budget is spent on the two chambers of the National Assembly, the elder statesman said it was time to do away with one of the chambers of the National Assembly in order to “reduce the level of corruption and impunity going on there.” For supporters of President Buhari, the politics that followed the submission of the 2016 budget in December 2015, the ‘discovery’ that the original budget submitted was ‘missing’, the accusations that the budget had been ‘padded’ and the finger pointing and grandstanding between the Executive and the National Assembly that ensued are additional reasons why the National Assembly should be cut to size. And one of the common proposals on how this could be done is to turn the national legislature into a unicameral one (that is with only one chamber instead of the Senate and House of Representatives as we have now). Some additionally want it to be a part time job. There is also an economic angle to this. With declining revenues and workers across the country being owed salaries, some are murmuring about the N115bn allocated to the National Assembly in the 2016 Budget. The image of the National Assembly has not been helped by recent media reports that the Upper chamber went on a buying spree of exotic cars at the cost of over N4.7 billion – at a time Nigerians are suffering and struggling to buy fuel. With many Nigerians angry and baying for the blood of any suspected oppressor, it is not surprising that more Nigerians appear to be questioning the rationale for wasting scarce resources on a two-chambered National Assembly, when they believe that one chamber can conveniently do the job. I feel that the anger against the National Assembly as an institution is misplaced. I also believe that a one-chamber National Assembly will create more problems than it will solve for several reasons: One, the history of bicameral legislature (i.e. one with two chambers) is one of the most compelling arguments for its preference over a unicameral one. The modern bicameral system has its roots at the beginning of constitutional government in 17th century England and later in the 18th century on the continent of Europe and in the United States. The English parliament became bicameral out of a realization that the interests of the nobility and clergy were distinct from those of the common people. Following from this, when the British colonies were established in America, the colonial assemblies were also bicameral in recognition that they were to serve two distinct interests: those of the mother country and those of the colonists. In fact after America’s declaration of independence in 1776, it opted for a bicameral national legislature – the Senate and the House of Representatives - because one of the greatest fears of the framers of the U.S. Constitution was that of ‘federal tyranny’. For this reason, not only did they ensure that that there would be executive, legislative and judicial branches to check one another, they also wanted a federal system of states to serve as a counterweight to the federal government. As a continuation of such checks and balances, a national legislature was not just for making laws and supervising the executive and the judiciary but its bicameral nature was also to ensure that the two chambers acted as a check on each other to forestall ‘legislative tyranny’. Two, in bicameral legislatures such as Nigeria and the USA, the House of Representatives is comprised of members who represent population districts within each state, while members of the Senate represent the states themselves. If we were to do away with one chamber, will Kano state feel it is fair if it has the same number of representatives as Ebonyi State? And will Ebonyi state not feel it is tyrannical if Kano is given more than twice the number of representatives than it has in such a one-chamber legislature? In a country like ours, a bicameral legislature could therefore also be seen as a great compromise between very populous and thinly populated states. Three, there is an additional reason why I feel we ought to retain a bi-cameral legislature – it offers an opportunity for a second thought on a piece of legislation. Sometimes a chamber could pass a bill on the heat of the moment and since to become law in our country such legislation needs to be passed by both chambers, there is always an opportunity to re-think ill-considered or hurriedly conceived legislations rather than having to embark on the usually time-consuming process of Constitutional amendment when a bill is discovered to have been passed in error. It is of course true that a bicameral National Assembly could increase the risk of a gridlock in needed political reforms. But legislation being hastily passed into law. Four, I also do not believe that having a bicameral legislature has much to do with the huge cost of maintaining the National Assembly or that making it a part-time job will result in any substantial saving. Most of the suspected costs in the National Assembly do not come from the wages of the legislators. Five, I will argue that in an emerging nation like ours, there are several special interests and contending forces that play critical roles in the economy and nation-building project, which ought to be specially represented in one of the chambers of the national legislature. I will propose that the Senate shall continue to mirror the equality of states (the number for each state could be reduced to two) while the House of Representatives should continue to reflect the population of states. Provision should however be made for appointed members to represent special interests in one of the chambers such as those of manufacturers, organized labour, women, the physically challenged and even militant and insurgency groups. I believe that by drawing groups that espouse ideas that ‘shock and awe’ into the competition of the political marketplace, the ‘glamour’ that goes with their ideas when they operate underground will be removed while offering the nation an opportunity to better understand the viewpoints of their proponents. In Canada for instance, the country’s 105 Senators are not elected but appointed by the Governor General on the advice of the Prime Minister. Now that the budget has been passed… The excitement that attended the signing of the Budget by the President gave the wrong impression that a Budget is a bank cheque that is going to be cashed and money would start flowing. The truth is that a budget is merely a statement of estimated expenditures and revenues. There is no certainty that the projected revenue – even from borrowing- will be met. For instance while the budget was based on estimated oil production of 2.2million barrels per day (mbd), following the two recent attacks at Chevron facilities, it is thought that production has already dropped to as low as 1.69 mbd. The projected revenue from oil in the face of the suspected drop in production could therefore only be met from an increase in the price of oil. The budget was based on oil price of $38 per barrel while it is currently selling for between $43 and $45. Obviously, if money could be found to fund the N1.57trn capital expenditure in the budget, it will trickle down and ease a few things. But we should be a little more realistic about what the budget is capable of accomplishing. The current hardship won’t go away overnight because some of the hardships have structural causes while others are compounded by the government’s economic policies. A major lesson from the 2016 budget however is that the executive needs to learn to cultivate the National Assembly. The grandstanding and finger-pointing between the two arms of government was unnecessary and reflects the poor relationship between them. In the past, it is not uncommon for errors to be discovered in the budget after submission to the National Assembly but resolving such had never been as acrimonious as we saw with the 2016 Budget. In the end the politics damaged both the Executive and the National Assembly in the eyes of many Nigerians. I believe the politics damaged the Executive more than it did the National Assembly. |