Deaf NASS, dumb Presidency

The tedious spat between President Buhari and the National Assembly over a budget that took six months to process is a depressing reminder of how politically stuck the nation has been in the last three years. There is already a long list of depressing issues staring the nation in the face. Not in any order […]

The tedious spat between President Buhari and the National Assembly over a budget that took six months to process is a depressing reminder of how politically stuck the nation has been in the last three years. There is already a long list of depressing issues staring the nation in the face. Not in any order of magnitude, these include evidence that Boko Haram is still a potent threat, the spectacular spread of banditry in rural areas and urban terror gangs, an increasingly restive and violent Shia movement, rising poverty levels and youth unemployment, uncertainties over how much violence will influence political activities leading to, and the actual 2019 elections. There are also staple matters of concern such as militancy in the Niger Delta, agitations for Biafra, kidnappings, crippling corruption in all facets of life and deteriorating relations among many communities which are likely to get worse.

With all these problems, and a few months to go to elections, you would think those we elected to solve our problems will make an effort to move beyond being our real problems. At the very least, you would think they will attempt to win a few brownie points, for themselves or against each other over the budget. You would have been wrong. President Buhari chose to play a tired old refrain. He submits budget estimates to the legislature, then walks away and leaves it at the mercy of his officials and a rapacious National Assembly which has read the constitution a little more diligently than the President. The legislature does with the estimates what it believes is better everyone’s interest and then, months later, hands them back to the President for assent. President them takes his time and then screams to the high heavens over the manner the legislature tampered with ‘his’ estimates. Then he signs them into law, notwithstanding.

What the legislature does is also routine. It takes the estimates, designs its own priorities into them, juggle figures, relocates projects and funds, creates hundreds of new projects that give them some personal political mileage in constituencies, raise allocations to ministries and agencies that scream impropriety, hold public hearings to create the facade of inclusiveness, raises allocations to itself and its agencies, makes copious references to its constitutional powers and responsibilities, blames the executive arm for delays and then, months later, sends its version of the estimates to the president for assent. It then sits back to absorb and ignore the massive public onslaught triggered by the presidency which casts it in the image of serial violator ofthe constitution, corrupt, greedy, insensitive and lazy parasite of the democratic system. It waits for the next estimates, or supplementary estimates, over which it will with play the same game plan.

For once, just this once, I wish President Buhari had changed his tactics. In the light of the long list of ‘breaches’ to the estimates which he accused the legislature of committing, he would have made a few more admirers and built a few inches of a moral high ground if he put his foot down and said, I will not sign this caricature. Sorry, Nigerians, he should have said, I know we need this budget very badly, but I will not sign it until the legislature corrects itself. We would then see if legislators will call off his bluff at a critical juncture before the elections. This move would have covered up his own failures to keep a closer eye on the process, engage the national assembly as is done in all democratic systems, and his routine, juvenile tantrums over important matters in which he should have exercised stronger leadership. Signing a budget into law after he pours torrents of tears over its state portrays him as weak and seeking cheap straws to clutch by whipping the most popular whipping boy.

Is there anything federal legislators can do to redeem their image which cannot possibly be better than that of the Nigeria Police today? These are people who have laboured under obvious luxury to explain that the millions which they are paid is legitimate, accountable and justifiable. It is safe to say that legislators have long conceded the image battle, choosing instead to swim deeper in the muck by the manner they amass and spend stupendous amounts to secure and keep mandates. They top this up with ‘constituency projects’, those omnibus vehicles of resource distribution that have hundreds of destinations ranging from useful community-based infrastructure to eye-caching wastes and, in many instances, directly into pockets of the legislators.

If federal legislators had any political intelligence, or one slightly higher that the presidency’s, they would have resisted the temptation to rise their allocation this year, and even taken a cut, no matter how little. The symbolism of such action in this election year when they  need  both political capital and a heavy war-chest would have been significant. They would spread the increases in the benchmark across the entire system, then make loud noises over the need to show restraint, make sacrifices and raise standards of responsiveness by capping their allocation at last year’s level, or even taking a cut. They would gain some sort of moral ground, and, if it serves their interests to bloody the presidency’s nose, they would also have exposed massive allocations to waste and abuse in the executive’s proposals. More significantly, they would have, with appropriate righteous indignation, slashed or refused to approve them.

Unfortunately, the nation will go to the next elections with a presidency constantly fighting unnecessary and wasteful battles, and a legislature bereft of moral assets, damaged by an image of a colossal, if necessary, liability. Few people will be interested in the on-going exchanges between the two arms. The budgeting process is too complex, too cumbersome and too politicized for Nigerians to decipher who is right or wrong. So we line up behind traditional positions: a legislature swimming in our money, standing up against an over-bearing President and serving our interests; or a President fighting a fat-cat legislature bent on frustrating his efforts to spend our commonwealth in our interests. Take your pick. Both will soon be asking us for a chance to do the same things the same way.

Jamila Abubakar wrote this piece from Abuja