The legislature as a laughing-stock in Nigeria

The posture is curious because the parliamentary system of government which accommodates it ended in Nigeria in 1966. To suggest that it may be due to materialistic gains may be correct considering the ease with which the legislature in Nigeria has become a willing tool in the hands of the executive to actualise every plot. […]

The posture is curious because the parliamentary system of government which accommodates it ended in Nigeria in 1966. To suggest that it may be due to materialistic gains may be correct considering the ease with which the legislature in Nigeria has become a willing tool in the hands of the executive to actualise every plot. In fairness, this happens mostly with members of the State Houses of Assembly that are ever ready to reverse themselves daily the way the ones in the Niger State House of Assembly ridiculed themselves the week before by electing two Speakers in a week as though they were drunk for half of the week.

It all began on May 15, 2012 when the House sacked its Speaker, Mohammad Tsowa Gamunu for alleged incompetence in the discharge of his responsibilities and unanimously elected Isah Kawu representing Bida 1 constituency as the new Speaker.  Gamunu immediately went to court to challenge his removal and joined the new speaker as a party.  As usual, the legislators could not wait for the matter to be resolved by the Judiciary as the constitution prescribes. Instead, they sacked Speaker Kawu that same week and elected another legislator, Adamu Usman, to take his place. The offence of the less than one week old speaker was not disclosed. The Assembly merely said it acted on a motion which was reportedly moved under matter of urgent public importance by a member- Andrew Doma- representing Shiroro constituency calling for the removal of the Speaker because of loss of confidence in his leadership. We can only hope that someday, posterity will ask those concerned the following questions. What was urgent about the motion? Is the replacement of a speaker for undisclosed reason a matter of public importance? What was the rational for moving a motion of vote of no confidence on a speaker who was yet to perform any specific role in his few days in office-in other words, how was the level of his competence determined?

It was difficult to ascertain the role of the Executive if any in the matter as a rumour that the state government provided over N200 million to induce the lawmakers to terminate the less than one week old leadership of their House was denied by the Commissioner for Information, Malam Danladi Abdulhamid. But no one denied the other story that before the removal of Kawu, civil servants in the state had marched on the Assembly Complex, to demand his removal. Also not disputed is the story that military and armed policemen were mobilized to the premises of the Assembly on the day of the planned removal which suggests that the law enforcement agencies were privy to the plan. They were there ostensibly to forestall any breakdown of law and order. Oh yes, they do that quite often. In February 2010, when members of the Edo House of Assembly violently ousted Speaker Zakawanu Garuba, media reports reflected not just the presence of law enforcement officials within the Assembly complex but also ambulances and medical doctors who were at the scene to administer first aid.  Who called them in? In September 2010, the 9 legislators that suspended 15 of their colleagues in the Ogun House of Assembly were reportedly escorted by 10 policemen. Who supplied them does not matter because before that day, the state was notorious for unending confrontation between the Executive and the Legislature. The famous 9 legislators reversed legislative rascality in the state by ensuring that all the development-oriented bills of the executive were passed within a few seconds of a single sitting

Many more State Houses of Assembly are known for rubber-stamping executive proposals. In Oyo State, the House colluded with the Executive to thwart the emergence of truly democratically elected local councils by extending the tenure of their caretaker chairmen.  Of course, the legislators were not unaware that by the time the fresh extension lapses, it will be impossible to meet the legal requirement of 120 days notification before the council election as stipulated in the electoral law. Interestingly, although a member of the House, Azeez Yisau, objected to the reappointment of the caretaker chairman of his constituency-Oorelope local government-all the nominees including the one objected to were all approved “as the executive pleases”. How then is the posture of democrats who frustrate popular governments at grassroots level to be explained? The pattern of removal of speakers seems to suggest that executive manipulation is not the only problem. There is also greed as legislators always put forward irrational reasons for removing their principal officers from office.

The December 2009 classical case of Speaker Ahmed Hassan Jumare of the Kaduna Assembly is instructive here. His colleagues who sought to remove him from office suddenly declared him as an illiterate and discountenanced his claim that he obtained his qualification from the State Polytechnic located in the same city as the House of Assembly. Also to be noted is the fact that every legislator that is due for removal is usually described by his peers as incompetent. When Ibrahim Sadiq, Speaker of the Adamawa State House of Assembly and his deputy were removed from office in 2011, incompetence and lack of administrative acumen were the reasons given by their colleagues. A few days later, Kano lawmakers removed their speaker-Yusuf Abdullahi Falgore for gross incompetence as articulated by Lawan Safiyanu Gogori, representing Shanono /Bagwai constituency. In the case of Ebonyi State, the situation was exactly the same with the removal of Speaker Ikechukwu Nwankwo. Against this backdrop, it is getting obvious that it may become difficult shortly to find one legislator in any State Assembly in Nigeria that is not incompetent.