Strictly Personal

Why Akpabio must respect the established procedure, By Taiwo Adisa

Published

4 months ago

January 8, 2024

Having closely followed the activities of the Nigerian parliament in the last two decades, the processes and procedures of that institution shouldn’t be strange to one anymore. After all, the Yoruba would say a body that has spent three years under the ground is no longer a visitor to the grave.

But I must confess, the ways of Nigeria’s 10th Assembly are not only becoming strange but have become so uncommon that its uncommonness may eventually stifle the neck of legislative sanity.

Yes, the legislature has some latitudes in the running of its affairs as guaranteed by the 1999 Constitution, but nothing in the laws grants the lawmakers the freedom to be unlawful or attempt to breach procedures in the exercise of their legislative freedom. That is why at every sitting, the Leader must move motions for an extension of time as stipulated in the Rule Book, even where it had become obvious to all the lawmakers that the assignment at hand needed such extension. Nothing should be taken for granted.

Section 60 of the 1999 Constitution states that: “Subject to the provisions of this Constitution, the Senate or the House of Representatives shall have power to regulate its procedure, including the procedure for summoning and recess of the House.” That provision notwithstanding, the impression should not be created that lawmakers have unlimited freedom in the running of their affairs. Several other provisions of the 1999 Constitution regulate the activities of the two chambers of the parliament, including the quorum and voting procedures.

That is why I found the appearance of the President of the Senate, Godswill Akpabio, and Speaker of the House of Representatives, Tajudeen Abbas a bit strange on Tuesday, January 2, when they joined President Bola Tinubu at the signing of the 2024 budget to law.

It is not an aberration for the duo and the leadership of the National Assembly to join the President in signing the budget. In fact, during the times of “war” between the executive and the legislature, such occasions were used to douse the raging fire. What is wrong is the President of the Senate clutching what looked like the budget document and handing the same to President Tinubu for his assent.

So for me, what should be a big issue in executive/legislative cordiality in this era was marred by Akpabio’s handling of the budget document to the President.

While it may look very innocuous if not unrecognisable in the lawmaking process, procedures are meant to be followed to the letter. The process of transmission of the budget to the Presidency does not recognise the President of the Senate or the Speaker. Their signatures are not needed for a bill to become law. In that mold, the law recognises the Clerk to the National Assembly(CNA), who heads the legislative bureaucracy. That is the man whose signature and that of the President authenticates any bill and makes the same law of the Federation of Nigeria. The Acts Authentication Act also appreciates that office accordingly.

So, while Tuesday, January 2, 2024, should have been a landmark in the annals of the executive/legislature relationship, especially as the President was assenting to the budget on the second day of the year, the apparent breach of the simple procedure of bills transmission tend to blight the goodness of the day.

Former Senate President Ken Nnamani will always remind his colleagues, that the lawmaking process is all about the procedure. While the 1999 Constitution gives the lawmakers the pencil and the eraser to make and unmake laws, the Judiciary can nullify such laws for failing the test of procedure. That is how important the process is.

According to the established practice, the budget must be harmonized when passed by the Senate and the House of Representatives. Even when the Appropriation Committees of the two chambers jointly worked on the document, making harmonisation appear secondary, the Legal Department of the National Assembly still needs to go through it to ensure the document is the same. After that, the document is passed to the CNA, who is empowered by the Acts Authentication Act to endorse the same and transmit it to the President. The channel of transmission is via the presidential Adviser to the National Assembly.

Once the bill lands in the Presidency, the President’s team is to ensure all is well before advising him on the need to assent.

The above is just one of the few indications of aberrative circumstances we have noticed in the 10th National Assembly since it came into being in June 2023. Some of the developments, which are indicative of lowering standards are however peculiar to Akpabio’s Senate.

In recent times, sittings of the Senate, which according to the Rule Book should start at 10 am don’t get to start until close to noon. Committee meetings which ordinarily follow the sittings are mostly hampered because the plenary would have dragged into late evenings.

Recent screening of presidential nominees is another issue. Nominees for the post of Resident Electoral Commissioners (RECs) of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) were brought to the chamber. That’s an assignment for the standing committee. Only the INEC Chairman should be so treated. We also saw the nominee for the post of Secretary to the board of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission on the floor. that’s another candidate for the standing committee. The same happened during the screening of the Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria and the Deputy Governors. Only the CBN Governor should have appeared in the chamber.

In previous chambers, even when nominees were sent when the committees were yet to be constituted, the presiding officers would couple an ad hoc committee to do the job. It was also curious to see that the Service Chiefs were screened by a committee of the entire senate. Even though the sitting later devolved into a closed session, the committee in National Security and Intelligence could have handled the assignment.

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Strictly Personal

In 64 years, how has IDA reduced poverty in Africa? By Tee Ngugi

Published

1 hour ago

May 7, 2024

Ifeoluwa Dada

The name of the organisation is as opaque as a name can get: World Bank’s International Development Association (IDA).

I had never heard of it. And suppose I, who follows socioeconomic developments that affect Africa, had never heard of it until last week when it convened in Nairobi. In that case, likely, only a handful of people outside those who serve its bureaucracy had ever heard of it.

Maybe IDA intends to remain shadowy like magicians, emerging occasionally to perform illusions that give hope to Africa’s impoverished masses that deliverance from poverty and despair is around the corner.

So, I had to research to find out who the new illusionist in town was. IDA was founded in 1960. Thirty-nine African countries, including Kenya, are members. Its mission is “to combat poverty by providing grants and low-interest loans to support programmes that foster economic growth, reduce inequalities, and enhance living standards for people in developing nations”.

It’s amazing how these kinds of organisations have developed a language that distorts reality. In George Orwell’s dystopian novel, Nineteen Eighty-Four, the totalitarian state of Oceania devises a new language. “Newspeak” limits the thoughts of citizens of Oceania so that they are incapable of questioning whatever the regime does.

Let’s juxtapose the reality in Africa against IDA’s mission. Africa has some of the poorest people in the world. It contributes a paltry two percent of international trade. It contributes less than one per cent of patents globally.

The continent has the largest wealth disparities in the world. Millions of people across Africa are food insecure, needing food aid. A study has indicated that Africa is among the most hostile regions in the world for women and girls, because of residual cultural attitudes and the failure of governments to implement gender equality policies.

Africa has the largest youth unemployment rate in the world. Africa’s political class is the wealthiest in the world. Africa remains unsustainably indebted. The people who live in Africa’s slums and unplanned urban sprawls have limited opportunities and are susceptible to violent crime and natural and manmade disasters.

As speeches in “Newspeak” were being made at the IDA conference, dozens of poor Kenyans were being killed by floods. These rains had been forecast, yet the government, not surprisingly, was caught flatfooted.

So in its 64-year existence, how has IDA reduced poverty and inequality in Africa? How has its work enhanced living standards when so many Africans are drowning in the Mediterranean Sea trying to escape grinding poverty and hopelessness?

As one watched the theatre of leaders of the poorest continent arriving at the IDA illusionists’ conference in multimillion-dollar vehicles, wearing designer suits and wristwatches, with men in dark suits and glasses acting a pantomime of intimidation, and then listened to their “Newspeak,” one felt like weeping for the continent. The illusionists had performed their sleight of hand.

Tee Ngugi is a Nairobi-based political commentator

Strictly Personal

This Sudan war is too senseless; time we ended it, By Tee Ngugi

Published

1 week ago

April 28, 2024

Ifeoluwa Dada

Why are the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RPF) engaged in a vicious struggle? It is not that they have ideological, religious or cultural differences.

Not that people should fight because of these kinds of differences, but we live in a world where social constructions often lead to war and genocide. It is not that either side is fighting to protect democracy. Both sides were instruments of the rapacious dictatorship of Omar el-Bashir, who was overthrown in 2019.

Both are linked to the massacres in Darfur during Bashir’s rule that led to his indictment by the International Criminal Court for crimes against humanity. They both stood by as ordinary, unarmed people took to the streets and forced the removal of the Bashir regime.

None of these entities now fighting to the last Sudanese citizen has any moral authority or constitutional legitimacy to claim power. They both should have been disbanded or fundamentally reformed after the ouster of Bashir.

The SAF and the RSF are fighting to take over power and resources and continue the repression and plunder of the regime they had supported for so long. And, as you can see from news broadcasts, they are both well-versed in violence and plunder.

Since the fighting began in 2023, both sides have been accused of massacres that have left more than 30,000 people dead. Their fighting has displaced close to 10 million people. Their scramble for power has created Sudan’s worst hunger crisis in decades. Millions of refugees have fled into Chad, Ethiopia and South Sudan.

The three countries are dubious places of refuge. Chad is a poor country because of misrule. It also experiences jihadist violence. Ethiopia is still simmering with tensions after a deadly inter-ethnic war.

And South Sudan has never recovered from a deadly ethnic competition for power and resources. African refugees fleeing to countries from which refugees recently fled or continue to flee sums up Africa’s unending crisis of governance.

Africa will continue to suffer these kinds of power struggles, state failure and breakdown of constitutional order until we take strengthening and depersonalising our institutions as a life and death issue. These institutions anchor constitutional order and democratic process.

Strong independent institutions would ensure the continuity of the constitutional order after the president leaves office. As it is, presidents systematically weaken institutions by putting sycophants and incompetent morons in charge. Thus when he leaves office by way of death, ouster or retirement, there is institutional collapse leading to chaos, power struggles and violence. The African Union pretends crises such as the one in Sudan are unfortunate abnormally. However, they are systemic and predictable. Corrupt dictatorships end in chaos and violence.

Tee Ngugi is a Nairobi-based political commentator.