Those who watched the theatrics that took place on the floors of the nation’s bicameral legislative houses in Abuja last Tuesday over the escalating insecurity in Nigeria may have been deceived to think that the federal legislators were genuinely concerned about the turn of events in the country.
At the Senate chamber, some senators that spoke on the security crisis in the country employed their oratorical skills, some even shed some drops of tears to show how badly they felt about the situation.
It was not a different situation at the House of Representatives chamber where the members articulated some points, after which they resolved to urge President Muhammadu Buhari to declare a state of emergency on the security sector.
They also resolved to convene a security summit to look into the whole gamut of the security crisis and why it has remained intractable.
But for those who have followed the activities of the 9th National Assembly in relation to the Executive arm under Buhari, all that happened Tuesday have just ended there. They have no power to move a needle. They have sold that power for a “pot of porridge,” ab initio.
The tear-shedding and emotional display that transpired were not the first time they were to happen at those chambers, yet, nothing positive came out of it.
The leadership of the 9th National Assembly sees President Buhari as untouchable and a man who can do no wrong. Members of the federal legislature know that all is not well with the country’s leadership, but they have preferred to keep silence, protecting one man’s interest against the nation’s interest.
In their very eyes one billion United States dollar ($1billion) released to the leadership of the Army to prosecute the war against insurgency, disappeared into thin air and head has not rolled, just because they do not want to offend the President.
They also hear about the divisions among the soldiers; how many of them have allegedly been compromised which has also made the prosecution of the low-grade war the more difficult, the National Assembly is not probing that.
Tajudeed Yusuf, a member of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) and a former House Committee chairman on Capital Market, said the trouble with the National Assembly is the belief that they protect the party more than the people and the nation.
Yusuf believes that President Buhari is not living up to the expectation, but that the National Assembly treats him as untouchable.
“The National Assembly has failed. We have not done enough of our oversight functions and we are interested in not being seen as being confrontational. When you are too loyal to an individual, you make a mistake. When you think the President cannot do wrong, you make a mistake. People are just playing politics. It is seen that those that hate the President are the ones complaining,” he said.
In the life of the current National Assembly, President Buhari has been severally “summoned” to brief the legislators on the efforts of his government towards reining in the monster of insecurity.
The President has not, even, on one occasion honoured the invitation. Some of his aides were to explain that Buhari cannot be so summoned or intimidated.
But come to think of it; why would a Buhari respect the “boys” he put in power at the National Assembly? Nigerians saw how all the principal officers of the 9th Assembly emerged; that they owe their elevation to the man in the Aso Rock Villa. It is difficult for them to order around their benefactor.
But can you imagine a situation where President Biden shuns the invitation of the Senate in America?
It is unfortunate that Nigeria has only one arm of government that is functioning. The legislature and judiciary are mere appendages and cannot go beyond mere “barking”.
A country with this kind of arrangement is not in a democracy.
Dachung Musa Bagos, representing Jos South/Jos East Federal Constituency at the House of Representatives, speaking on Thursday, April 29, 2021, on Channels TV Sunrise Daily, on the proposed security summit, said it was going to be the last of such meetings as it would give the President the ample opportunity to inject new and fresh ideas into the fight against insecurity in the country.
Although a member of the ruling All Progressive Congress (APC, Bagos) insisted that the situation of the country at the moment does not call for sentiment.
“After this last summit…if nothing is done…we will call for the impeachment of the President. We have the power to impeach the President,” he said.
The lawmaker may have spoken like any other concerned Nigerian would, the problem is the dangerous inclination of the leadership of the National Assembly toward the President, which makes it very difficult for the President to take them seriously, and also for the National Assembly itself to constitutionally ask him to leave office over manifest incompetence.
A professor of Political Sciences, who has been in and out of political circles in Nigeria, said that the National Assembly members were shouting the way they shout simply because the insecurity in the country may be obstructing them from making their money, and not because of the number of lives that are being lost.
“If you understand the mindset of an average Nigerian politician, you would realise that they are not even as much as bothered by the level of killings going on; they are rather troubled and agitated because the confusion is standing on their way.
“For the legislators, they can no longer drive around and go for over sight duties where they make a lot of money. I tell you, it is not just about how the insecurity is affecting the masses. Those guys don’t think about you ooo,” he said.
ObinnaChidoka, House Committee chairman, Environmental Habitat, is of the opinion that rather than invite the President to the Senate which he would not honour, it may be better for all the 360 members of the House of Representatives to march to the Aso Rock Villa to meet the President. He believes that such a visit would show the seriousness of the matter.
For those who have watched the security crisis closely and the castrated response of Abuja, it is obvious that the Buhari administration has no answer to the menace.
He has resorted to making all manner of consultations, which are aimed at persuading the Nigerian people to be patient, and not that he has any solution. Six years in office, the President has gone back to calling the international community to come to his assistance. The question is, that assistance he has not got in the last six years, is it now that he will get it?
Shortly after he was elected president in 2015, Buhari was told to bring along his “wish list” to the G7in Germany which held 10 days after he was declared winner by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) presided over by Professor AttahiruJega.
Buhari had obliged. He took along a lengthy list our Nigeria’s desperate requests.
The list among other things contained items like security cum terrorism, combating corruption, help with power/energy, help with the economy and infrastructure, also assistance via direct foreign investment.
In the last six years, the Buhari administration has moved from one country to another, cap-in-hand, begging for all manner of assistance, particularly, on security.
Again, the question that Chidoka and many other Nigerians have asked is, if Buhari spent many years seeking to be a civilian president, does it mean he never envisioned good projects in the interest of the country and the people? Was it just to add it to his long CV that he was once a civilian president?
The current National Assembly is simply a rubber stamp legislature and cannot carry out any meaningful oversight function on the Executive arm. They had mortgaged their voice from day one, and the likes of GarbaShehu knows that his principal has the lawmakers in his pocket.
The day the National Assembly was making all the noise at the chambers, Nigeria was one hell of a place. Reports of killings, abductions, arsons, invasion of terrorists, and other assorted types of dastardly acts were being perpetrated by blood-thirsty elements across the country.
It is the views of many Nigerians that the National Assembly should be disbanded, as it no longer meets the need for which it was instituted.
Chidoka confessed that many members of the House or Representatives no longer visit their constituencies on account of the rising insecurity in the country. They are stuck in Abuja and they no longer interact and interface with their people.
The Niger State Governor, Abubakar Bello the other day cried out that Boko Haram members had taken over Kaure axis in Shiroro Local Government Area of the state. He said the Islamist sect had hoisted their flag over Kaure axis forcing women from communities around the areas to be members of the terrorist group. The territory now belongs to them.
Now, there is a member of the House of Representatives whose areas of representation included Kaure axis; there is a senator in the Senate under whose district falls Kaure, when was the last time the Rep and the senator visited Kaure since the terrorists invaded the area?
The oath of “excessive and unbridled” allegiance the leadership of the 9th National Assembly swore to President Buhari has now turned an albatross. Like the decadent and unpopular Roman Emperor, Nero, Nigeria is on fire, while leaders are playing the fiddle.
