Yes

Yes, We Do Need A Bicameral National Assembly

Jideofor Adibe, Ph.D.

The N10bn loan scandal rocking the House of Representatives (HOR) seems to have added to the public angst against members of the National legislature. Repeated financial scandals coupled with the recent allegation by the CBN Governor Sanusi Lamido Sanusi that some 25 percent of the country’s annual budget are spent on the two Chambers of the National Assembly (NA) have led to calls for the country to adopt a unicameral legislature - to save cost.

I agree that the jumbo pay of the legislators is simply obscene. To put this in perspective, the 11 Members who were suspended by the House leadership but reinstated by the courts are reportedly being owed 10 months salaries and allowances amounting to N120m each. This sum is the equivalent of about twenty years’ of a Professor’s salary or more than three times the annual salary of the British Prime Minister who earns £142,000 pounds per annum.

I do not however believe that having a bicameral legislature has much to do with the huge cost of maintaining the National Assembly. My personal opinion is that apart from greed, the Constitutional requirement that each State shall have three Senators and a certain number of Members of the House of Representatives based on population is largely to blame. With an unwieldy 36-state structure, I do not honestly believe that we can effectively tackle the issue of reducing the cost governance without collapsing these states into no more than 18 - three from each geopolitical zone.

I also believe that the way our National Assembly is currently structured has not properly crystallised the value of having a bicameral legislature. Historically bicameralism - a National Assembly with two Chambers - is associated with separate representation of different estates of the realm such as one chamber representing the aristocracy while another represents the commoners. In the US for instance the Senate was originally created to be a ‘stabilising’ force. The idea then was that Senators would be more knowledgeable than members of the House of Representatives to ‘stabilise’ what James Madison, the Fourth President of the United States of America, regarded as the “fickleness and passion” of the House. Until 1913 when the 17th Amendment was passed paving way for the direct election of Members, Senators were chosen by state legislators and they had to own a significant amount of property in order to be deemed worthy and sensible enough for the position.

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 chamber of the national legislature. I will propose that the Senate continues to mirror the equality of States while the House of Representatives shall be made up of both elected and appointed members that represent special interests such as Manufacturers’ Association, Women, the physically challenged and even militant 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. I suggest that appointed members of the HOR shall be nominated by each State Governor and approved by the State’s legislature. 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.

I also believe that the House and the Senate shall have equal powers. I equally favour a bicameral legislature at the State levels, with one chamber emphasizing the equality of Local Governments and the other constituted in such a way as to reflect the various contending interests in the State. Apart from the principal officers of both the State and National Assemblies, legislative work should be part-time, with the legislators paid a sitting allowance. My personal opinion is that the way the two chambers of our National Assembly are presently constituted makes it seem as if one is a duplication of the other.

There is an additional reason why 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 legislations rather than having to embark on the usually time-consuming process of Constitution amendment. It is of course true that a bicameral National Assembly, where both chambers have equal powers, could increase the risk of a gridlock in needed political reforms. But for me, it is a small price to pay against the greater risk of ill-digested legislation being hastily passed into law.

Undue obsession with ‘technocrats’

As Goodluck Jonathan prepares to unveil his new cabinet, there have been strident calls from several quarters for him to ensure that the cabinet is dominated by ‘technocrats’. In theory technocracy is a form of government in which those who have high technical expertise in a field are in charge of decision making. A key assumption is that consummate professionals will perform their duties without becoming captives of political interests. I believe this assumption is simplistic. First, technocrats operate in a political milieu and often take on the political colours of whoever appointed them. Second, in our political history, the technocrats, often distinguished by their ‘Professor’ or ‘Dr’ honorific, are no different from others when it comes to sleaze, corruption or incompetence. This should not be misconstrued as a case for professional politicians but to show that we are often carried away by fads. Personally I believe that being a technocrat is an attitude of mind - the ethical and professional standards we bring in the performance of our duties. As the legendary boxer Mohammed Ali would say, a champion is not made in the ring but by the qualities he brings from outside of the ring. A technocrat is not, in my opinion defined by qualifications and curriculum vitae but by attitude to work.

Four, the new fad of calling for ‘technocrats’ to take over re-echoes the debate in public administration on who makes a better departmental leader between the specialists (i.e. those with great depth of competence in one special area) and the generalists (those good at doing many things, but typically are not at the same expert level as specialists in any one area). One of the criticisms of ‘specialists’ (or technocrats) is that even within the same field of specialisation there are often different perspectives such that two experts in the same field may not agree. This in my view should temper the obsession with ‘technocrats’. My belief is that effective leadership goes beyond one’s specialist competence to include skills in dealing with people as well as the ability to get people of different backgrounds and sensitivities to work together to achieve a given goal.

Five, a technocrat can only achieve as much as the appointing executive gives him/ her room to take risks. A secure chief executive can allow a Minister or aide to strive to excel while an insecure one will see any accolade on the achievements of the Minister/aide as a threat. In our type of society, the ability of the appointing chief executive to stand solidly behind his aide even in the face of harsh public criticisms is also crucial for success. This is perhaps an area where the country has never produced a leader like Obasanjo (despite his other shortcomings). I believe it was the room given by Obasanjo to his favoured appointees (he daubed them the ‘Economic Team’) to take necessary risks and the political cover he provided them in doing their jobs that is often mistaken to mean that ‘technocrats’ perform better than professional politicians.