The Constitutional Amendment Nigeria Needs

Abdulrahman Muhammad Dan-Asabe, Ph.D.

Ningbo, P. R. China

January 05, 2006

The complete scrapping of the federal legislators - the Senate and the House of Representatives - is one constitutional amendment that Nigeria needs at this moment. To start with, it is high time Nigeria considers developing indigenous democracy that takes into account our peculiarities. The current system with Federal Lawmakers has proved too expensive with nothing positive to show but harvests of disasters to the nation.

The federal lawmakers, at least some of them, are responsible for several unconstitutional and unparliamentary behaviours that have encouraged the executive into contemplating a bid to extend the President’s and governors’ stay in power beyond their current term which expires on May 29, 2007. The “3rd term agenda,” as the extension of tenure bid is now known, has already done incalculable damage to the unity of the country with further potential for dismemberment of the nation.

It is mind boggling how the present calibre of lawmakers - internationally recognized professors, ex-VCs, ex-military generals, seasoned politicians, etc – could exhibit such degree of incompetence and disservice to the nation by becoming or watching unperturbed, as some of their members become forces of retrogression.

To show how ineffective the lawmakers have been since 1999, the reader may recall, amongst others, the following:

Despite lack of adherence to, and abuses of, the national budget by the executive since the inception of this administration in 1999, both upper and lower Houses of Assembly have continued to rubberstamp anything passed to them by the executive as budget, with no questions raised on the performance or otherwise of past budgets.

A foundation of corruption has already been laid in the system by some members of the lawmakers; receiving bribes from anybody and for anything that is before them. They receive bribe from the executive to pass anti-people’s law, from nominated candidates before the candidates can get confirmation of their appointments and from serving ministers in what is now known as “bribe-for-budget” approval.

With this corruption foundation already incorporated into the system, chances are that any new set of members - that may include some of the architects of the corruption foundation – would come with the mindset of “making it” or not being “left out” of the scramble for a share of the national cake. This unwholesome attitude is highly likely as Nigerians seem to have an unwritten “understanding” that things are turn-by-turn, and that when it is your turn, you may do as you wish; good or bad. That is why only in Nigeria one hears illogical statements such as: so what if the President performs poorly or stole public fund? Is he the only one? Didn’t past governments do worse than this? Well, the nation will go nowhere if we continue to look at national issues in this ethno-religious way.

Twice, the nation shunned (or sought to shun) the lawmakers for an alternative arrangement in dealing with important national issues; issues that are otherwise purely the constitutional domain of the lawmakers. The first was the formation of the National Political Reform Conference to discuss political reforms and agitations for resource control by a section of the country. The second was in late 2005, when former Defence Minister, Lt. Gen. T. Y. Danjuma suggested that senior citizen delegates from all over Nigeria assemble to talk the President out of the 3rd term agenda. Danjuma’s suggestion was quickly re-echoed by none other than the Presidential Adviser, Prof. Jerry Gana, showing the degree of respect the public and the presidency has for the lawmakers. If the lawmakers cannot be trusted and relied upon to discharge their duties and protect the interest of the nation, of what use is their continued existence?

The reader may be tempted to think that the lack of trust and confidence in current lawmakers originated from the general lack of credibility of the 2003 elections that ushered them into Abuja in the first place. This is partly true. Partly true also is that it is very doubtful that Nigerians, being who we are, would hardly trust anyone dining with the executive in Abuja to fully and honestly represent our interest.

The lawmakers also proved they were insensitive to the plight of ordinary citizens in particular, and to the state of the nation in general, when they asked that members be placed on life-long salaries, and the Senate leader demanding to ride in N300million chauffeur-driven bullet-proof car - in a country where ordinary citizens are barely surviving!

Scrapping the federal lawmakers would force these Abuja politicians to go back to their respective states to seek relevance and representation. This action may result in our state Houses of Assembly and local government councils (LGCs) becoming more competitive and populated with more competent people and, all things being equal, expedite progress.

In place of the federal lawmakers, each state House of Assembly should form a Special Committee on Federal Matters (SCFM) to take over the duties of the federal lawmakers.

To pass a federal law or deliberate on national issues, selected members of each state SCFM should meet in Abuja for not more than three weeks, and at no extra cost to both federal and/or state government; except for accommodation that should be provided by the federal government.

Unlike the present condition in which the legislators in Abuja serve as easy targets for executive manipulation, SCFMs would be more difficult to manipulate as they would have no mandate to deviate from what has already been debated and agreed upon at state levels. Decision reached at SCFMs meetings in Abuja would be a credible and acceptable decision that would enjoy the support of Nigerians.

In conclusion, with the present lawmakers’ bad record: corruption, inability to properly discharge their fundamental duties like ensuring strict adherence to the national budget by the executive, poor representation of their constituencies (some were engrossed in a fight against the recall process), in addition to the high cost of maintaining them, Nigeria would be better off without them.