Nigerian Senate and the ‘Bow and Go’ tradition

Before we go into the main issue, I slated for discussion today, let’s digress a bit. Someone sent me a few lines as soon as the presidency forwarded the list containing 65 career and non-career ambassadorial nominees to the Senate.  One of the names that struck the eyes is that of Senator Jimoh Ibrahim, the senator representing Ondo South in the red chamber. Ibrahim was sworn in as Senator in June 2023, and some two years and six months later, he discovered he was not a candidate for the legislative chambers. He has been busy celebrating his nomination as an ambassador. Here is a reader’s take on the oddity his nomination portends: “Someone should write about the fall of the senate to the extent that a Senator (Jimoh Ibrahim) is celebrating and being congratulated for being nominated as an ambassador. Something that should be beneath a Senator. Even accepting the role of a minister should be anathema. Udo Udoma, as Senator, rejected (President Olusegun) Obasanjo’s offer to be minister. Today, showing how far we have fallen, Senators are scrambling to be members of the executive. Very soon, they will become commissioners in their states!!”

That writer is talking about a crumbling standard, from a pedestal, to not a standard at all. It should leave a sour taste in the mouth to see a revered institution dragging itself either into infamy or into the mud.  In December 2023, the former Governor of Plateau State, Simon Lalong resigned his position as Minister of Employment, Labour and Productivity in the cabinet of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu to take up his seat as the Senator representing Plateau South. He had been engaged in a legal battle to reclaim the seat after the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) earlier declared that he had lost the election. Lalong’s example appeared to have redeemed the image of the Senate following the decision of Senator Tokunbo Afikuyomi to serve in Lagos State, and the misgivings by some legislative purists to the decision of former Senate President Anyim Pius Anyim to serve as the Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF), after his tenure as the nation’s number three man.

So much for a digression. Last week, the Senate eventually screened the career and non-career ambassadorial nominees at the Committee on Foreign Affairs.  It turned out to be a jamboree of some sort and an unexpected rein of the “Bow and Go” culture. Reports that emanated from Senate Room 301, venue of the screening, indicated the good (very few) and the bad.  There was drama when Senator Adams Oshiomhole clashed with Senator Ali Ndume over the screening of Reno Omokri. It was a needless argument that got ballooned into national importance.  But the oddity that followed was higher in volume, even though many applauded it as the norm-the gale of “Bow and Go” courtesy accorded many nominees-something that is already apportioning a slur on the image of the Senate.

I’ve combed the legislative books, the Legislative Power and Privileges Act, the Acts Interpretation Act, the Constitution, and the Senate rule books from 1999 to date. I did not come across anything that legalised the practice of “Bow and Go.”” I have also checked out this practice in other parliaments across the world and came up with a shocking revelation that it is a Nigerian invention.

And if you may ask, what do senators mean by “Bow and Go?” It is a culture in Nigeria’s Senate screening process where a nominee is simply asked to bow before the chair (Presiding officer) and the Senate, without answering any question related or not related to the nomination. This culture that started growing in the Senate since 2003 is accorded largely to former lawmakers, either in the Senate or the House of Representatives, or to their spouses.  Such nominees are allowed to simply acknowledge the lawmakers, go through their resume, and then bow to the three corners of the chamber and leave. They simply passed through the confirmation process, which is the voting process where the ‘Aye’ usually has it.  

Over the years, this tradition has been extended to ministerial nominees, ambassadorial nominees, and more.  A short video clip surfaced recently when one senator was canvassing that the “Bow and Go” courtesy be accorded to the new Minister of Defence, General Christopher Musa.  Senate President Godswill Akpabio, who flared up at the suggestion, was quoted as saying: ‘Why would the chamber accord Musa a “Bow and Go” privilege when Donald Trump is on the nation’s neck over matters of insecurity.’  Akpabio’s outburst was a realisation that the culture, invented by the Nigerian Senate, serves no good to anyone.  

This practice has been criticized for undermining the screening process and denying Nigerians the opportunity to assess the qualifications, if not the quality, of nominees for public office. True, the practice is used to favour the fast-tracking of the confirmation process, but I can’t fathom any good it brings to the polity.

 It all started like a stroll in the park. If at least two senators from your state agree on your nomination, that can soften the ground for you. If the three senators agree with your nomination, then you can enjoy the bow and go privilege because all it takes is for one of them to plead with the Senate to note that ‘the nominee before them is a kind man who has the capacity to deliver on his assignments’. He then pleads that the nominee be allowed to take a ‘bow and go’.  It later developed into privileges accorded to presiding officers. This was in the heydays of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). If a nominee got his or her nomination through the President of the Senate or any of the principal officers, he or she is asked to ‘bow and go’ as a mark of respect to the ranking senator, who facilitated the nomination.  It went on and on. Sometimes, if a single female nominee is on the list, such a one could be asked to ‘bow and go’ in deference to the gender sentiment.

In the example of the 10th Senate being presided over by Akpabio, the ‘bow and go’ culture has become so notoriously used as if it is a weapon of mass destruction. The Senate had set the tradition of setting free their own-whoever had served in the Senate before, and then extended the same to former members of the House of Representatives. But in the present situation, things appeared to have been decentralised, and the screening last week treated the mundane rather than key national issues.  There were no quotes from the nominees on diplomacy, nothing about what Nigeria’s foreign policy initiative meant, nothing but the ‘bow and go’ courtesy.   

In contrast, parliaments across the world devote ample time to such screenings while taking the nominees through rigorous questions and scrutiny. Other parliaments, such as the US and the UK, apply transparent processes that show accountability to the people. Are there implications for this Nigerian invention? Sure, they are varied and multifaceted.  One of such is the lack of accountability in the process. Legislators are representatives of the people.  They are to take positions on the people’s behalf. When they do things that refuse to give room for accountability or shut down the same people they are supposed to represent, they miss the point, denying the people the opportunity to assess potential office holders. Aside from that, lawmakers also undermine transparency by creating a perception of favouritism, thus undermining public trust in the screening process and potentially eroding public confidence in government institutions. When lawmakers engage in inadequate scrutiny of nominees, they already endanger the oversight function of the parliament, as incompetent hands are likely to get the nod of the Senate to occupy public office. There is also the culture of patronage that the ‘bow and go’ culture seeks to foster. It’s a rub my back, I rub your back scenario, whereby quality is sacrificed at the altar of sentiment.

 Since there is no example of parliaments that practice the “Bow and Go” culture the way it is practiced in Nigeria, we may have to look at certain peculiarities that informed the emergence of the practice.  My search revealed that the unwarranted culture, which is different from the relaxed screening process as you may observe in other parliaments, might have evolved as part of cultural practices in the country, seeping into political trends.

Culture has a huge influence on our politics, and the culture of respect for elders might have influenced the rise of the “Bow and Go” tradition. The respect for elders, which spreads across the different cultures in the land, might have cleverly locked itself into the behaviors of the lawmakers and sometimes misapplied.

It is also possible that the lawmakers have misinterpreted the legislative privilege accorded to them by the  Constitution. The privileges include immunity from civil or criminal proceedings for actions taken in the course of their duties. Some lawmakers may think that if one of them has enjoyed that privilege once, he should continue to enjoy it till God knows when. The fact that a presiding officer has been accorded that right once means that his successors will also continue to enjoy the same, and that allows the unwritten law to keep expanding. So, what does “Bow and Go” bring to the Nigerian polity? Nothing, really. One sad thing is that it denies us all the opportunity to see the intellectual capacity of the nominees.  The other is that for the good nominees, it’s like helping to keep the lit candle under the table. In all, no one should be afraid of a rigorous screening in the Senate. This Nigerian invention of a parliamentary practice should simply be allowed to ‘bow and go’ out of the red chamber.

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