Reps’ 2 years of business unusual?

JACOB SEGUN OLATUNJI and KOLAWOLE DANIEL X-ray some of the activities of the House of Representatives in the last two years.

THE inauguration of Eighth Assembly of House of Representatives on June 9, 20‎16 was dramatic, as members of the newly elected All Progressives Congress (APC), which had the  majority,  defied the party’s directive and settled for Honourable Yakubu Dogara and Lasun Yusuff as Speaker and Deputy Speaker respectively, against the party’s wish to have Honourable Femi Gbajabiamila and Mohammed Mongunu for the top job.

The election of the presiding officers in the House had witnessed various interest groups jostling  to ensure the election of their preferred candidates into the House’s plum positions. But  the representatives  who voted for the duo of Honourables Dogara and Lasun had claimed afterwards that they did what they did to ensure the independence of the legislature as an arm of government.

The election, no doubt, created a wide gulf in the House to the extent that members resorted to violence in the bid to reverse the composition of the leadership by forcing Dogara and his deputy to quit. The aggrieved members who wanted leadership claimed they were trying to protect the interest of the party which had zoned the top positions. But the majority of members rooting for freedom from party leadership and executive interference in the affairs of the lawmakers blamed the powerful cabal in the APC for the conflict.   But while the drama lasted, the Speaker and his think-tank, it was learnt, embarked on fence-mending to ensure that the House remained as one.  But the rapprochement that was reached was to break down when the budget padding scandal broke out.

The budget padding scandal further created more issues among the lawmakers, as leadership of the House was said to have been the target of the budget padding allegation. The now suspended chairman of the House Appropriation Committee, Honourable Abdulmumin Jibrin, had alleged that the presiding officers and some principal officers of the House, including some committee chairmen, were the brain behind the budget padding.

Ironically, the APC leadership whose directive was discarded during the election of the presiding officers and partly during the composition of other principal officers had to wade in during the budget padding scandal, the development viewed by the Chief John Odigie-Oyegun led National Working Committee, NWC of APC as causing embarrassment to the party.

Committees’ headship and composition of members were another daunting task for the Dogara-led House at its inception. Most of the APC lawmakers had kicked against the decision of House leadership to allot sizable committees to the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) members, whose party was rooted out of power. But the House leadership managed to find a way to have some members compensated with ad hoc committee chairmanships as a way of creating balance and calming the fray nerves of members.

Interestingly, in the two years of the House, there were reports of clashes of some ad hoc committees in the House with standing committees over mandates. Even, the Speaker at a point had to announce on the floor of the House the suspension of all ad hoc committees which were set up before the composition of standing committees, asking them to wind down their activities and submit their reports. The Speaker however explained that the decision was not punitive but one that was taken to effectively put an end to the conflict in legislative assignments.

The House also introduced Sectoral debates, a novel programme in Nigeria’s legislative history, where ministers of government appeared before the House to answer questions relating to their duties and sectors in an effort to diversify the economy.

On budget reform introduced by the House leadership, two-thirds of committee members were designated to sign committee budget reports before it can be presented for consideration. Generally, the budget process has been made more transparent and accountable.

Better Executive-Legislature relationship

The House of Representatives introduced a new Budget Process Bill to regulate the timeline for budget activities   to put an end to the lingering problem of non-implementation of budgets that had stifled execution of developmental projects since 1960. Budget proposal is now passed at plenary with full details as done in the passage of 2017 budget.

On relationship with the Executive and Judicial arms of government, it is widely noticed that the rapport between the executive and the legislature has not been too cordial due to suspicion, especially in the area of budget implementation as well as constituency projects for the lawmakers.

The House has also carried out landmark Investigations into different sectors of the nation’s economy, such as oil & gas, procurement, and has also had to investigate corruption allegations, dabble in matters relating to security, financial, especially banking, AMCON, among others.

The House’s face-off with the Executive was more pronounced with failure of some ministers and heads of government agencies to honour invitations to investigative hearing organised by the House. Most times it took a threat to issue warrant of arrest on defaulting government appointees by the House before such officials could honour the summons of the House. Some of the government appointees, sometimes,  had to complain about frequent summons by the House, which they claimed often prevented them from doing their national assignments.

Between the House of Representatives and the Judiciary

In the last two years, the relationship between the representatives and the judiciary has been very warm. Both arms of government has enjoyed good working relationship in their joint efforts to  amend some portions of the law that were said to be obsolete. At the beginning of the 8th

House, Dogara had set up a committee of eminent jurists to review obsolete laws and reform such laws. Many of the Bills in the House of Representatives  are as a result of the collaboration. The House of Representatives under Dogara has considered a record 130 bills on based on robust oversight activities.

The House Special Ad hoc Committee on constitution review, chaired by Honourable Lasun Yusuf has equally been working on different bills passed by the House aimed at amending the 1999 constitution. The House in the years under review is also working to review the electoral laws to be in conformity with best practices in the world. To achieve result in the constitution review process, bills are now broken into segments to ensure that any one that is vetoed would not affect the general amendment or alteration process.

But Dogara while speaking on the passion that has driven him and other legislators in the last two years, said that the fear  of not leaving a lasting legacy which will impact positively on the lives of Nigerians, was the enriching fuel. The speaker,  in a statement issued by his Special Adviser on Media, Turaki Hassan, was quoted as saying: “I tell people that one of the things God has developed real well in me is to remove fear from me. I fear nothing.”

Dogara had gone on to reveal that the only thing that frightens him is if the House he leads is unable to leave landmark achievements. “The only thing that frightens me is if this eighth Assembly which, by virtue of the grace of God, I have been called to lead, is unable to leave landmark achievements; that is what bothers me and prevents me from sleeping.

“At times, I begin to think about what it is that we have achieved, done wrong or could have done better? What is the next line of things we can do for the betterment of the lives and living conditions of our people? This is going to be two years; what can we really say we have done that has bettered the lot of Nigerians? What will be our place when the history of this country is written?

“Those are the issues that prevent one from sleeping, really, as against political battles with individuals or thinking about next elections – those are not the issues at all.

“I bother a lot about where we are leading this House to and what it is we can achieve in both parliament and in government, because we are running the same government. If Buhari fails; all of us have failed, because it is one government and we cannot extricate ourselves,” the speaker was quoted as saying.

Speaking on the achievements of the House within the two years, Deputy whip, Pally Iriase,  together with chairman, House Committee on Rules and Business, Emmanuel Oker-Jev told newsmen  that a total of 1,055 bills were introduced in the last two years, out of which 159 were passed,13 were negative and over 500 bills are currently at various stages of passage.

According to him, one of the high points of the 8th House was the opening up of their budget for public consumption, stressing that the National Assembly has also reformed the budgeting processing, thereby minimising conflicts with the executive.

On way forward, he said that, in line with President Muhammadu Buhari’s anti-corruption fight, the House would focus on passage of all anti-corruption-related bills. In additoon, he said the people’s representatives would pass the Petroleum Industry Bill (PIB)into law soon, just as it is working on the process of pushing lawmaking towards e-parliament.