NIRAN ADEDOKUN FROM PUNCH
Nigeria’s Senate justified the impending purchase of imported Sport Utility Vehicles for its 109 members on Tuesday. The PUNCH quoted Chairman of the Committee on Senate Services, Sunday Karimi, as attributing the need for these expensive vehicles to the lousy state of Nigerian roads.
According to the report, Karimi said: “These vehicles that you see, go to Nigerian roads today; if I go home once, my senatorial district, I come back spending a lot on my vehicles because our roads are bad.”
I wonder whether the senator listened to himself. If he did, and he has any jot of honesty in him, he would judge himself to have sounded more like a complaining expatriate worker visiting Nigeria for a one-off assignment than a representative of the people of Nigeria. It is unfortunate on many fronts.
Apart from the fact that members of the legislature should prioritise the interest of Nigerians over their personal comfort, it is disgraceful that a senator of the Federal Republic will attribute this insensitive expenditure to a cause over which the 1999 Constitution as amended, gives it national oversight.
The Senate has a standing committee on works, and another one on the Federal Road Maintenance Agency. Yet, this august body of people’s representatives could say that their current extravagance is due to a lack of diligence for which Nigerians should chastise them. It is the highest level of disregard for the people and irresponsibility for the Senate to impose the double jeopardy of forcing Nigerians to ply bad roads and inflicting the cost of their selfish tastes on the long-suffering people who elected you to protect their interests.
So, is it that members of the National Assembly and their counterparts in the states misunderstand the remit of this all-important institution, or are they just too taken by mercantile considerations to behave like the true representatives of the people? Whichever it is, we must let legislators across this country realise that their derelict of duty is unacceptable.
Another example of the ridiculous posturing of the National Assembly was the decision of the Senate to investigate all contracts awarded for the repair and maintenance of Nigeria’s refineries since 2010.
Of course, it is within the purview of the body to embark on this venture, but why so late and to what effect?
In May, for instance, the House of Representatives Ad Hoc Committee on the State of Refineries said the Federal Government spent N11.35tn on rehabilitating these assets since 2010. That information is already in the public, but the Senate has now decided to embark on another wild goose chase over which nothing will happen. How do I know that nothing will happen? I know because this is not the first of such investigations from which Nigeria has not benefitted anything! It is hard to believe that anything different will come out of this new exercise.
But there is the more important question: why so late? Section 88 of the 1999 Constitution provides that “the National Assembly shall have power… to direct or cause investigation into – any matter or thing concerning which it has the power to make laws, and (b) the conduct of affairs of any person, authority, ministry, or government department charged, or intended to be charged with the duty of or responsibility—(i) executing the administering laws enacted by the National Assembly, and (ii) disbursing or administering money appropriated or to be appropriated by the National Assembly…” In essence, if the National Assembly had appropriated all the monies that have been spent on these refineries, it would also have claimed to carry out oversight functions on the oil and gas sector in all these years, so why is it just discovering that these resources didn’t bring about the desired results? Would the National Assembly not be as guilty as the executive in the misappropriation or misapplication of these monies, as the case may be? Or has the legislature only been negligent and not conniving? Anyhow, the National Assembly is either genuinely ignorant or deliberately anti-people, if not wicked. It violates the mandate and confidence of the people to check the excess of the executive, rather to the people’s detriment. Say what they will; the legislature can’t extricate itself from the misgovernance that Nigeria has witnessed, at least these past two decades.
