How hunger protests expose underbelly of NASS inefficiency

Besides its vote of no confidence in the performance of the executive arm of government, the recent nationwide hunger protests are also a scorecard on failure of legislature to put the executive’s excesses in check, and act in the best interest of the masses, AZIMAZI MOMOH JIMOH reports.

The legislature, particularly the National Assembly, is receiving hard knocks for performing below expectations in its constitutional duties of representation and oversight functions on other arms of government to ensure good governance.

It is specifically being blamed for failing to block serious economic leakages in the economy, particularly in revenue-generating agencies where experts have revealed that the country loses some trillions of naira on a yearly basis.

For instance, in the non-oil revenue generating sector where the National Assembly has no fewer than 10 committees to monitor and carry out oversight functions on relevant Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs), the country is said to be losing over N6 billion yearly to ineffective tax systems.

Notably, the Constitution empowers each chamber of the National Assembly to conduct investigations into activities of any institution of government, to check corruption as well as make laws or amend existing ones to plug leakages.

Against the backdrop of recent #EndBadGovernance protests nationwide, during which Nigerians publicly expressed dissatisfaction with the government, fillers showed stakeholders’ discontent about the alleged abandonment of people’s interests among the peoples’ representatives (i.e. NASS). This is especially underscored by the alleged abuse of constituency projects on which the sum of N100 billion has been committed yearly since 2000 but without commensurate impact on the welfare of the people in the 109 Senatorial districts and the 360 federal constituencies. Cumulatively, no fewer than N1.7 trillion has been released for such projects from 2010 to date.

The country’s apex legislative body is also being accused of compromising the check and balance system, which is meant to strengthen the constitutional concept of separation of powers – a development that has resulted in yearly leakages in the economy estimated at a figure thrice that of the yearly budget.

Instances abound where the National Assembly did turn deaf ears to extra-budgetary expenditures that drained the common treasure to the detriment of the economic survival of citizens.

Amidst outcry about the high cost of governance, the federal legislature shocked Nigerians when it approved 48 ministers, the largest since independence, for President Bola Ahmed Tinubu without raising an eyebrow.

It was the same legislature that gave nod to the executive’s request for the sum of N30 trillion spent on unknown issues even when no details of such had been provided. It took the public uproar and outcry for the succeeding Godswill Akpabio-led National Assembly to constitute an ad hoc committee to investigate to unveil what the money was spent on.

Alas! The report of that investigation has since disappeared into thin air as the committee, led by the Kogi-born Isah Jibrin, resorted to giving excuses for a job it was supposed to have concluded in May 2024.

The latest twist was that the Senate is processing a new law to establish a fund from which monies will be released to offset the N30 trillion Ways and Means debt. As exclusively reported by The Guardian, the Senate is establishing new machinery to raise funds to liquidate the N30 trillion Ways and Means granted by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) to the Federal Government during the Muhammadu Buhari-led administration.

This development is a shocking twist particularly after the country’s apex legislative body had five months ago commenced investigation on the circumstances surrounding the controversial N30 trillion Ways and Means.

Sponsored by Senator Tokunbo Abiru, a banker representing Lagos East Senatorial District, the piece of legislation, is titled: “A Bill for an Act to Make Emergency Economic Provisions to Restore Macroeconomic Stability through an Inflation Reduction Programme Involving the Liquidation of the Outstanding Central Bank of Nigeria’s Ways and Means.”

-sponsors of the Bill, which approves the sale of public assets in the oil and power sector to settle the N30 trillion Ways and Means debt, are senate leader, Michael Opeyemi Bamidele; former senate leader, Abdullahi Yahaya; Senators Osita Izunaso, Ahmed Wadada, Isah Jibrin, Abdul Ningi, Solomon Adeola, Seriake Dickson, Aminu Tambuwal, Orji Kalu and Adamu Aliero.

As citizens grappled with the economic wastes arising from the helplessness of the National Assembly in stopping the taking of the N30 trillion Ways and Means or even querying what it was used for, news of the purchase of unapproved N5 billion presidential yacht hit the airwaves. And then came the confirmed new presidential jet, which had been the subject matter of some hide-and-seek games between the presidency and the National Assembly.

Also, the applause by the National Assembly for the executive’s poor budgetary provision for the agricultural sector, especially in the face of hardship occasioned by the removal of subsidy on the petroleum sector, is not to the credit of the legislature.

The allocation to agriculture was N362.9 billion ($302 million) in the 2024 budget, representing 1.26 per cent of the total N28.7 trillion. Stakeholders revealed that poor governance, which has produced acute poverty, a high unemployment rate, and other economic pains deteriorated because of the total hijacking of the legislature by the executive arm of government, a development that has crippled the constitutional concept of separation of powers.

The Civil Society Legislative Advocacy Centre (CISLAC), which has a special interest in strengthening the legislature through advocacy, lamented that through the alleged commercialisation of votes and other forms of election manipulation, “the wrong people who do not have a thorough grasp of the concept of people representation are always elected into parliaments across the country, hence the compromise of people’s interests by the National Assembly”.

Executive Director of the organisation, Auwal Ibrahim Musa, alleged that excessive and unquenchable greed by politicians had put the interest of ordinary Nigerians in jeopardy.

Musa lamented that constituency projects can’t improve the lives of the people because “they have been hijacked”.
“For now, forget it! There is nothing like legislators representing their constituencies. They are taking instructions from the executive that are very overwhelming. They cannot resist anything. If any of the legislators speak to the contrary, he will be banned or even suspended. So, it is a conquered legislature.

“You can see the lack of prioritisation of even the security. And the same police, who are doing this (harassment of protesters), are poorly paid. They have no training or retraining. They are not getting anything good from politicians. So, it’s a vicious cycle. It’s a terrible situation the people find themselves in. Only through good governance, transparent, accountable and responsible governance can get us out of this quagmire.”

Tracing the tragedy of hopelessness for the people in the legislature, CISLAC said: “It is all clear to everybody that the question of proper representation in Nigeria is very low. A lot of legislators who happen to be at the National Assembly or state Houses of Assembly do not have a grasp or understanding of the mandate that they have. This is because of the commercialisation and privatisation of public offices, especially in the elective and appointive positions in Nigeria.”

former House of Representatives member, and chairman of the Committee on privatisation, Tajudeen Yusuf, expressed concerns about the decline in the quality of representation in the National Assembly.

He noted it has affected the value of governance to the people of Nigeria. He said: “The 10th Assembly, to me, has not been able to be what it should be because of the manner it came. And it’s unfortunate too, I’m sorry; the quality of men and women who are being recruited from Nigerian society is a reflection of where we are as a people and our values. They didn’t come from Ghana; they are Nigerians. The quality has been on the decline. Every year, those who are coming are ill-equipped,” he said.

The Human Rights Writers, Association (HURIWA) added that in the light of the just concluded #EndBadGovernance protest, and the role they are supposed to play in their representation, the current members of the National Assembly have performed abysmally poor in all facets.

Leader of HURIWA, Emmanuel Onwubiko, noted that the National Assembly is largely seen as surrogates of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu because the leaderships of both the lower and upper chambers of the National Assembly were installed by the President.

“So, the National Assembly is part of the larger issues that led to the #Endbadgovernance protests in Nigeria. This is because the National Assembly since resumption in June of last year, has always stamped seals of approvals on all the toxic and troubling economic programmes and policies of the administration that have substantially unleashed mass hunger, poverty and the costs of living crisis that we are witnessing.

“The National Assembly has lost its moral voice because members are beneficiaries of the corrupt system whereby they were given exotic SUVs costing the taxpayers billions of naira. The National Assembly is responsible for approving all the draconian policies that have been churned out by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) including the floating of the Naira, which led to the weakening of the purchasing power of the national currency and the immediate implications are that prices of items and essential commodities have become extremely unaffordable by millions of Nigerian households undergoing multidimensional poverty,” he said.