Lawmakers or lawbreakers

I n my previous opinion published in Daily Trust ‘’The Bright Future of Corruption in Nigeria’’, I talked about how the educational sector becomes a breeding ground for recalcitrant acts. So the ‘’blame-pointing finger’’ is still on it. What use to crawl my thoughts is an incident during the recently conducted APC primaries, how a […]

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n my previous opinion published in Daily Trust ‘’The Bright Future of Corruption in Nigeria’’, I talked about how the educational sector becomes a breeding ground for recalcitrant acts. So the ‘’blame-pointing finger’’ is still on it. What use to crawl my thoughts is an incident during the recently conducted APC primaries, how a State House of Assembly Membership contestant engaged in thuggery, a villainous act that even a dog will not accommodate. What is interesting is how the APC adopted someone with such a lawless attitude as their candidate to be a lawmaker. I pray such a villain will never by chance be my ambassador.

Cheers and jeers are typical of legislative houses world over, but the Nigerian NASS disruption of budget presentation is an outdated thuggery. It achieved nothing but just an execrable show of shame; it does not override the president’s veto over their enacted bill, neither was it an inch close to process of impeachment. It is nothing compared to the vote of no confidence on the Prime Minister Theresa May, by the House of Common, the United Kingdom parliament. Not even the frenzy by the British Lawmakers on the slurring of Jeremy Corbyn on May is to be compared to that of our Lawmakers on the President.

Irresponsible protest from the side of the opposition members and cheers and jubilation from ruling party members. It was an embarrassing session. Some notable voices were heard chanting ‘’lies’’ or ‘’is a lie’’ whenever the president made a significant point in his presentations.

The disruption was so loud that the president has to plead and call on their attention prompting them that the world is watching and to be more reasonable. Similar scenario to what transpired between Jega and Orubebe, also live on TV. Only that this lawlessness was done by our honorable lawmakers.

It may not be surprising to many as some of the people sitting in the legislative chamber were familiar faces, these were the people that were in the system right from our primary school days. Morphing from governorship, state house, ministers and so on to the National Assembly. Some of them have been street thugs who made it in politics. Some were so corrupt that the only way to stay safe is to be immune and immunity comes in power.

All blame on us that we chose to elect the non-law abiding citizens among us as lawmakers.  What do we expect other than catastrophe in the legislature? So I ask my honorable; are we there to make laws or break them?

Aliyu Aliyu Abdulkadir, Abuja.