National Assembly bureaucracy rescue mission: Matters arising

It is not always that the public bureaucracy features in the news as bureaucrats are by statute, required to deliver services in compliance with time honoured rules and procedures, as well as in anonymity and officialdom. The breach of this dispensation occurs when some individual officials violate extant procedures out of ignorance and diminished appreciation […]

It is not always that the public bureaucracy features in the news as bureaucrats are by statute, required to deliver services in compliance with time honoured rules and procedures, as well as in anonymity and officialdom.

The breach of this dispensation occurs when some individual officials violate extant procedures out of ignorance and diminished appreciation of the ways of the service, or are inclined to promote personal interest under the cover of officialdom.

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And even at that, the time honoured traditions of the public service, with their inbuilt safety measures often truncate any nefarious schemes by such smart-by-half officers.

The foregoing scenario captures the cycle of developments around the National Assembly bureaucracy in the past two months – specifically since July 2020, which featured in the main and end-game for the ill-fated, sit-tight agenda by its former Clerk to the National Assembly (CNA) Mr Mohamed Sani Omolori, and other so-disposed officers.

It is easily recalled that the development was followed by an unprecedented administrative tsunami, which swept him and 150 other officers in one fell swoop away from office, for failing to leave the service as and when due.

They had hoped to enjoy a five year extension of their statutory service tenure, but had to bow to the dictates of the public service rules.

But for the determined and focused Fourth National Assembly Service Commission (NASC), acting in national interest, the outrage would have been lingering till the proverbial Godot arrives.

Incidentally, revelations now spewing into the public domain with the regime change, betray a worrisome tenure of the last CNA which featured  serial, deliberate deconstruction of the time honoured values, procedures and processes of the bureaucracy servicing the country’s central legislature, and which may take time and significant restorative effort – not to talk of financial and other resources, to reverse.

Among the clutter of breaches are illegal employment of various categories of persons into the institution in flagrant violation of extant procedures, serial breach of procurement procedures, juggling of established operational units and schedules of duty for designated officers, as well as the establishment of a personality cult built around the CNA, and which created an ambience of liberty of impunity, for officers in his good books.

This dispensation spawned a regime of vendetta which targeted persons considered both real and perceived threats to his person and interests.

He in turn engaged in open confrontation with constituted authority in the legislative establishment including presiding officers.

The ultimate misstep of the leading lights of the bureaucracy was the questionable dispensation of smuggling a tenure extension agenda through which they hoped to stay for additional five years in office, after their expected dates of routine retirement.

It is now taking the enterprise of the Fourth NASC under the leadership of Ahmed Kadi Amshi, one of the finest engineering minds in the country, to decode and launch a rescue mission, as a prelude to commencing on a reinvention of the National Assembly bureaucracy.

This process which is in progress is expectedly not turning into a tea party for the NASC. For while a regime change has been effected, a rather insidious challenge may have taken root, as the unseen legacies of the exited order.

And until a degradation of such vestiges of that old order is addressed significantly, the NASC should remain vigilant over a possible resurgence of untoward tendencies, sponsored by aggrieved remnants of the old order, in protest over losing their comfort zones.

These may have repositioned themselves in the establishment’s woodwork, and are waiting for the right circumstances to hit back at the system.

This scenario is not exclusive to the National Assembly but is common to many organizations that execute a sudden regime change.

However the case of the National Assembly is unique as the bureaucracy remains the engine room of the institution and therefore impacts on the successes and failures of the legislative chambers in more ways than is often realized.

That is why any incidence of departure from the established procedures and processes in any aspect of its strategic functions, remains a matter of concern for well-meaning Nigerians.

It is in that context too that the enterprise of the NASC in rescuing the institution from the reign of capriciousness, impunity and denigration of national interest, qualifies for endorsement of and commendation by every Nigerian.

It is also significant that the current Fourth NASC comprises members who  beyond their individual superlative credentials, had meritoriously served previously in sensitive positions, while some of them actually performed as  legislators and even advisers to presiding officers of the National Assembly, and others.

Hence they remain not only familiar with but are also disposed to act decisively on any untoward tendency likely to assail the establishment.

One area of concern which demands the urgent attention of the NASC is the issue of guaranteeing the integrity of bureaucratic support for legislative operations of the institution.

Even as career ascendancy in the public service is driven by traditional factors of which seniority leads, experience has severally proven the danger in allowing seniority to trump experience and competence in placing public officers in areas requiring specialized performance.

A typical instance is the case of the Acting Clerk to the National Assembly Amos Ojo, who is an architect and throughout his career in the National Assembly has never been involved in any legislative activity, beyond visiting the Chambers as a maintenance person or even a spectator.

Granted that Ojo could have been the most senior officer in the hierarchy, his elevation to the office of the CNA – which requires more than administrative acumen poses the likelihood of operational slips sooner than later.

The CNA is not just the head of the National Assembly bureaucracy.

The incumbent also functions as the ultimate adviser to the presiding officers of the institution as well as supervisor of the two Chambers of the Senate and House of Representatives.

Some Smart Alek had recently quipped that Ojo’s appointment as acting CNA without any formal mentoring with respect to the job, conjures the image of a carpenter assigned to produce a designer tuxedo suit.

On the contrary, the Acting Deputy Clerk to the National Assembly Bala Yabani is a lawyer who has been head of the legal department and also been engaged in processing bills and other legislative business without doubt, offers a more assuring  option as the CNA, either in acting of substantive capacity.

In the light of the present situation, the NASC may need to consider other options of manning sensitive offices in the National Assembly including advertising vacant positions to allow for the emergence of possibly best candidates from a wider field than the narrow top echelon of the institution.