What manner of lawmakers in the eighth Senate?

Opinions are sharply divided about the rating and nature of the outgoing eighth National Assembly, the Senate particularly. Leaders of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) have perpetually restated the need to “get things right” this time, while many others have also stated the uncomplementary executive/legislature relationship foisted on the nation during the outgoing session.

The burden of perception that has been the lot of the outgoing Assembly can however not be detached from its foundation issues. The leadership of the eighth Senate emerged against the grains of endorsements by the leadership of the ruling party, meaning that some measure of bad blood has already been sown between it and the executive.

During a recent gathering at the Presidential Villa, Abuja, President Muhammadu Buhari gave voice to the negative perception of the eighth Assembly lawmakers when he said he and the lawmakers did not particularly enjoy a rosy relationship. But the relationship between the executive and the legislature is not usually made in heaven.

Elements of the government had taken opposition stance against Senator Bukola Saraki immediately after he emerged the Senate President on June 9, 2015. Some forces had thought he dared not contest the office and that beating them to the plum job meant he was challenging the powers that be.

The first signals that things won’t go smoothly between the chamber and the Villa was the refusal of the presidency to welcome the Senate President for the significant handshake immediately after he emerged the chairman of the National Assembly. In fact, it took four months before Saraki stepped into the Villa, precisely to partake in the Independence Day anniversary activities of 2015.

Incidentally, Saraki’s Senate is one that can be described as a child of necessity that thrived in crisis time. The statistics being reeled out in respect of the turnout of the chamber revealed that it has passed the most number of bills since the restart of democratic rule in 1999. Records also show that the eighth Senate has engaged more activities and more issues than any of its predecessors.

For instance, a comparative analysis of the performance of the eighth Senate alongside that of the fifth, sixth and seventh Senates indicated a wide margin in terms of bills turnout. While the fifth Senate passed a total of 129 bills, the sixth passed 72 bills. The seventh Senate passed 128 bills, while the eighth Senate, which still has some two weeks to go, has passed 293 bills. It has however also recorded the highest number of rejected or vetoed bills, which so far stands at 40.

The Assembly, which kick-started its key interventions in August 2015 with debates on the power sector, passed a resolution urging the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC) to immediately abolish fixed charges on electricity consumption and bulk metering of villages and communities. The senators declared that the practice was unduly exploiting the consumers.

Again in November 2015, the chamber dabbled into a critical issue of the moment, which nearly brought it in conflict with the executive arm. The fraud alert in the management of the Treasury Single Account (TSA) led to some tense moments between the executive and the lawmakers. Senator Dino Melaye, who raised the motion, alleged the possibility of some underhand dealings in the payment of billions of naira to agents and stakeholders in the TSA value chain. The lawmakers said they detected some alleged fraudulent activities in the implementation of TSA and passed a resolution to bring the practice to a halt and also saved the nation N25 billion.

The eighth Senate will go on record as one that made some landmark interventions in the area of healthcare. Starting from its two- day public hearing on drug abuse, especially following the outbreak of widespread drug misuse in Kano and parts of the North, the lawmakers finally nailed the coffin with the approval of the mandatory spending of one per cent of the consolidated revenue fund of the federation on health.

In December 2017, the Senate held a two-day “Roundtable on the Drug Use Crisis in Nigeria” in Kano, Kano State. It was a major event targeted at the growing misuse of drugs around Northern communities. The hearing featured papers by experts and a documentary by the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC). Following the public hearing, the National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC) moved against unregulated sale and distribution of Tramadol. The roundtable also led to the initiation of two important bills in the Senate: the National Drug Control Bill and the National Mental Health Bill.

Equally of national importance is the Senate’s intervention in primary healthcare. In May 2018, the Senate intervened in the health sector by passing a clause in the 2018 Budget to set aside one percent of the Consolidated Revenue Fund (CRF) for the provision of primary healthcare in the country. The chamber restated that the decision would make more funds available for healthcare in line with the National Health Act which was enacted in 2014. It was reckoned that the intervention of the lawmakers would further enhance spending on primary healthcare to the tune of N55 billion annually.

Though the National Health Act was passed in 2014 with the mandatory provision for the Basic Healthcare Provision Fund (BHPF), the provision became practical only in 2018, when the National Assembly inserted the clause in the budget

Senate President Bukola Saraki, who spoke on the matter on Tuesday, said that the intervention by the lawmakers accounted for the successes being recorded in the health sector.

He said: “I think the game-changer is the 469 members of this National Assembly who in 2018 single-handedly ensured the funding of the Basic Healthcare Provision Fund (BHCPF). If you go by the media reports, they called it padding, but it was the intervention that provided those funds that will make a difference in the Healthcare industry today.”

Minister of Health, Professor Isaac Adewole, who also spoke on the development while briefing the Senate on the state of healthcare delivery in the country, said 22 states had already keyed into the BHCPF. He said Nigeria needed to invest in the Primary Health Care (PHC) because the 22 teaching hospitals and 17 specialist hospitals in the country depend on “functional primary and secondary health care centres.”

“If these two levels of care are functional, about 90 per cent of ailments will be taken care of,” the minister said, adding that the National Assembly should be commended for ensuring the actualisation of the BHCPF. “It is a game-changer,” the minister said.

Another intervention in the area of health care was also the intervention by the Senate in the strike by the Joint Health Sector Union (JOHESU) strike in 2018. The strike had crippled the health centres with deaths being recorded daily. To douse the growing tension, the president of the Senate met with the Minister of Health, Professor Adewole, Minister of Labour, Dr Chris Ngige and JOHESU leaders. As a mark of respect for the Senate intervention, the strike was suspended on its 44th day.

In 2016, the Senate landed a dramatic one on the jaws of the executive when it launched a probe into activities of the Presidential Initiative on North East (PINE), owing to growing complaints about the humanitarian crisis.

The ad hoc committee on the growing humanitarian crisis in the North East, headed by Senator Shehu Sani, came into being following persistent reports, especially by international bodies, on the humanitarian crisis in the zone. The Senate had earlier in the 2016 budget earmarked the sum of N10 billion to aid the Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) in the North-East. The committee was to discover some underhand activities by the PINE and indicted the then Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF), Babachir Lawal, who eventually was relieved of his office as a result of the pressure from the Senate.

But the implementation of the report did not come that cheap. The lawmakers had, on October 4, 2016, mandated the fact-finding technical committee to probe into the alleged fraud in the PINE and the growing humanitarian crisis in the North-East. The committee’s interim report, as well as the final report, indicted the former SGF of misappropriating the sum of N200 billion belonging to the PINE and meant for the IDPs.

Though President Buhari initially alleged that the SGF was not given a fair hearing when he wrote a three-page letter to the Senate, the final report affirmed the initial interim report and Lawal was eventually removed from office.

Another fraud investigation was the probe of import duty waivers scheme in 2016. The probe uncovered abuse and fraud to the tune of N447 billion in the import duty waivers scheme on rice importation alone.

One probe that touched on general interest was the public hearing on the planned hike in tariff of data by telecommunications companies. The chamber, in November 2016, launched the public hearing which stopped the proposed hike in prices of data by the Nigerian Communication Commission (NCC). Reports indicated that a mobile data price comparison index conducted by the UK-based Cable Goup found that Nigeria has one of the cheapest mobile data subscription rates in Africa. According to the report, Nigerian placed 11th out of 57 countries on the continent, with an average price of $2.22 for per gigabyte (1GB).

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Still, on probe and investigations, the Senate also looked into avenues to block leakage and fraud in revenue generating agencies in 2016. It took motions to investigate revenue generating agencies of the Federal Government for leakages, non-remittance and misuse of generated revenue. The investigations revealed that most of the Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) had, over a long period, spent billions of generated funds without the necessary annual appropriation by the legislature.

Besides probe and investigations, the outgoing Senate and, by extension, the National Assembly also pushed through some innovations. One of such is the #OpenNASS initiative. It was targeted at promoting transparency in the National Assembly budget systems as well as opening up its procedures to the general public. During the outgoing session, a detailed budget of the National Assembly was made public alongside the breakdown and the annual report on appropriations.

The outgoing chamber also introduced the #OpenNASS measure as an avenue to bridge what it perceived as the wide communication gap between Nigerians and the parliament. It set aside a week to open its operations to the public and ensured that the Standing Committees provide bits and pieces of information on their activities. One of the measures it instituted to promote openness is the public hearing on the national budget instituted during the outgoing session.

The chamber announced the first-of-its-kind public hearing on the national budget in 2016. The policy was sustained in the 2017, 2018 and 2019 budget sessions as well. The hearings availed economists and finance experts opportunities to ventilate their views on the budget proposals.

Besides holding a two-day security summit and devoting a week to debates on the economic situation in the wake of the recession of 2016, the outgoing chamber has also made landmark footprints in the area of security reforms. Some weeks ago, the Senate passed the amendment of the Police Act as well as the Police Trust Fund bill. The Trust Fund is aimed at providing standard funding for the police through tax payments by companies operating in the economy.

More than any previous Senate, the outgoing chamber also made wider use of social media. A chunk of its proceedings was always available on Youtube and WhatsApp platforms. The information unit said that the measure was aimed at promoting interactivity with the public as well as throw open the activities of the chamber such that the electorate could understand the processes and also follow their representatives. Outside the Youtube, the chamber also ensured live streaming of sittings on twitter and other social media platforms. Sometimes, the audience figures were said to rise as high as 20,000 Nigerians.

In the outgoing session, the lawmakers also perfected the use of electronic voting. In the previous chambers, the measure was only used during constitution amendment exercises, while perennial breakdowns were recorded in the procedures.

Perhaps to invent what has been done within the chamber on a national scale, the chamber has also passed the Electoral Act No. 6, 2010 (Amendment) Bill into law. The bill is aimed at influencing the electoral process positively in the country with the push to eradicate electoral malpractices and make for an easier, more transparent and faster election process across the country. The fullness of the envisaged reforms was, however, yet to materialise as the Electoral Amendment Bill has continued to face back and forth between the National Assembly and the presidency.

But the endless bad blood and adversity between the executive and the outgoing legislature has been a cog in the wheel of its progress. As a result of lack of communication, some 40 bills have been rejected by the president. Override of the veto is equally rare to come by as a result of the sharp division along party lines. Some of the bills rejected thus far include the Electoral Amendment Bill, which was rejected four times; Petroleum Industry Governance Bill (PIGB); Bill Seeking to Amend the Constitution for an annual State of the Nation Address by the President; Industrial Development (Income Tax Relief) Amendment Bill; Immigration (Amendment) Bill; Chartered Institute of Pension Practitioners Bill; Maritime Security Operations Bill; Bankruptcy and Insolvency Bill; Small and Medium Enterprise Agency Bill and the Energy Commission (Amendment) Bill, among others.

Thus, from sectors such as economy, health, security and governance, the outgoing Senate has left some indelible marks. Historians of National Assembly would truly record it as one session that thrived in the midst of adversities. Though 40 of the nearly 300 bills it passed had to suffer rejection as a result of the adversarial ambience that radiates between it and the executive, maybe one day just before the curtain falls, the executive would just review its stance on some of the critical bills it rejected.