In Praise of Rep. Femi Gbajabiamila

For one, he is truly a rare party man in this age that political parties are seen as ladders to highest offices rather than bodies of shared values and programmes for national development. He has paid the price for being a party man. Secondly he comes out as an objective democrat, willing to abide by […]

For one, he is truly a rare party man in this age that political parties are seen as ladders to highest offices rather than bodies of shared values and programmes for national development. He has paid the price for being a party man. Secondly he comes out as an objective democrat, willing to abide by the outcome of the inclusive election of the speaker in which he honourably lost. Thirdly by agreeing to work with the new leadership of the House, ” ….as long as the party programs are properly articulated” we are witnessing new generation of focused and principled legislators.  Fourthly by declining to go to court and resisting the option of endless  litigations to purely political issue, Gbaja is a worthy politician with political outlook. Future belongs to politicians who stand for something with all the attendant pains before the ultimate gains. The controversy that  trails the recent  elections of the principal officers of the Senate and House of Representatives of the 8th National Assembly has once again thrown light on the quality of the political process and the politicians.
It’s time we implemented some of the recommendations of the 2014 National Conference report with respect to the naughty twin-issues of  management of political parties and electoral process. There is no doubt that “…at stake in this unhealthy development are the critical success factors of internal democracy, consensus building, independence of the National Assembly, party ideologies, inclusiveness and vote-counting, shared values, party supremacy and  carpet-crossing, among others”.
These issues are indeed recurring themes to be addressed if our democracy will undergo necessary quality control. Happily these issues have been addressed in the 2014 National Conference with robust recommendations begging for implementations. On the whole it is gratifying that the legislators and party chieftains have opted for worthy win-win reconcilliation instead of unhealthy triumphalism and wars of attrition. Certainly simple electoral process involving 109 senators and 360-member
House of Represen-tatives should not be characterized by so much tension, doubt and acrimonies. The current crisis of election of leadership in the Assembly comes too soon after the nation has gained considerable political mileage in consensus building following the April presidential elections. Of course Nigeria has never been short of elected principal officers of the Senate and House of Representatives, since 1999. With 7 Senate Presidents (5 of them on the average spent only 2 years in office!) and 7 Speakers (with the only female speaker Patricia Etteh 2007 that lasted few months!) Nigeria has the highest turnover of principal officers of National Assembly in Africa. South Africa, for instance, has more stable parliamentary leaderships (5 speakers in 20 years of democracy!) who are themselves products of robust party organizations and programmes. What  Nigeria is short of is good governnance with respect to good laws for development and public welfare. Even more important for Nigerians is the cost of running our National Assembly.
Legislators should emulate President Muhammed Buhari and some governors like Kaduna state governor, Mallam El Rufai who had demonstrated national sensitivity in recent time by offering to free resources for development and not their self-helps in the name of remuneration. Nigerians will judge the legislators based on their stand of the mood of the nation for cost cutting from the above. Nigerians look forward to a sensitive National Assembly whose members would reduce their existing prohibitive pay largely informed by greed not their need. There is an abysmal  disconnect between the money spent and the benefits of legislative process to the nation. There is  a growing gap between the increasingly accumulative owning political class on one hand and impoverished working men and women on the other hand. It is a legislative scandal of the 21st century that the law regulating the petroleum sector in Nigeria is the same obsolete – 1969 Petroleum Act. Petroleum industry bill must be made a law to stop the existing crisis of criminal importation in place of domestic beneficiation through domestic refining crude, crude oil theft, products’ hoarding and petroleum products’ price robbery. Nigeria needs laws against unacceptable dumping of goods sabotaging the economy.
 All Nigerians look forward to progressive legislative legislations for development, productivity and protection of domestic industry, ensuring dignity of labour, wealth generation, employment and freedom of association  in the new National Assembly.