Making our lawmakers work

The present Senate under the leadership of Senator Bukola Saraki has been adjudged by highly and lowly placed Nigerians as one that lacks integrity and the people’s confidence for many reasons. These reasons have already been laid at the doorstep of the National Assembly by people who raised them.

It is expected that under normal circumstances and in civilised democracies, the people will continue to remain skeptical to the business of the Senate including the so-called ‘constitutional amendments’ until the myriads of expectations of the generality of Nigerians are met.

What are these expectations? They include: turning deaf ears to the loud cries of the people over the dual pay structure (salary and pension) as presently being enjoyed by some senators and some members of the House of Representatives; sweeping under carpet the unresolved issue of 2016 budget padding which involved some members of the National Assembly; undue arm-twisting of the executive arm of government by the legislative arm through employment of legislative rascality and threats aimed at embarrassing the President and also aimed at scuttling the trial of some alleged corrupt senators and members of the House of Representatives who are either under investigation by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) or are already being tried in the law courts for stealing of public funds by frustrating the confirmation of the appointment of Ibrahim Magu as substantive chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC).

The lukewarm attitude of the National Assembly, the Senate in particular, to the popular demand by the people for a unicameral legislature and the running of the National Assembly on a part-time basis as the panacea for checking the exorbitant cost of running of democracy in our country is condemnable.

It is rather unfortunate that the present 8th Senate was laid on a faulty foundation with the inglorious and kangaroo election that was held on Tuesday, 9th June, 2015 to bring up  Senator Bukola Saraki as the Senate President and Senator Ekweremadu as the Deputy Senate President respectively.  To add salt to injury, the principal officers of the Senate were handpicked by the Senate President without recourse to the political party that paved the way for him to become a member of the upper chamber in the first place.  The scar of that election which was aptly tagged as a ‘coup’ may continue to remain in the anal of the history of the Senate in Nigeria and if public opinion is anything to go by under a democratic set up, the 8th senate is seen as the greatest opposition to the change government under President Muhammadu Buhari.

Odunayo Joseph,

Kogi State