Two years of Bankole’s paradigm shift
But that was not to be. Under the controversial circumstances that prevailed, not much could be achieved and the House was divided into a pro-Etteh group and the Integrity Group opposed to her. The crisis culminated in victory for the Integrity Group, and on November 1, 2007; the House, for the first time in its […]
But that was not to be. Under the controversial circumstances that prevailed, not much could be achieved and the House was divided into a pro-Etteh group and the Integrity Group opposed to her.
The crisis culminated in victory for the Integrity Group, and on November 1, 2007; the House, for the first time in its history, chose its Speaker through a duly conducted election without any external influence. The US/UK-trained Hon. Oladimeji Sabur Bankole, who promised to make the House of Representatives the “House of the Nigerian People” through robust debates and a faithful discharge of its constitutional responsibilities of law-making, oversight and representation, became the Speaker.
From the platform that threw up Bankole as Speaker, it was clear that his mandate encompasses such virtues as transparency, integrity, accountability and pursuit of good governance. Since November 1, Bankole has set a new template for the House of Representatives in the discharge of its role with minimal confrontation and conflict with the executive arm while achieving maximum and often unprecedented results in its core functions.
The first major task and test of Bankole’s agenda was the 2007 Appropriation Bill (Budget). For Bankole, the era of the House just ‘rubberstamping’ bills was over as the House would ask questions in the format of input-output and outcomes to ensure good governance. Its scrutiny of the 2008 Budget bill led to the discovery of unspent fund of N450 billion from the 2007 Budget. This issue of unspent fund remained in the front burner of any legislative process on Appropriation Bill and in 2009 Appropriation Bill, N350 billion was returned as unspent fund from the 2008 Budget. Hitherto, these unspent funds were pocketed through bogus usually unexecuted end-of-year contracts.
In all, the House under Bankole’s watch has passed 88 Bills affecting all areas of life. This level of bill passage among over 300 bills undergoing one form of legislative process towards passage is a marked improvement for the Green Chamber. It compares favourably with similar periods in the past with about 20 bills.
Perhaps, the House under Bankole achieved most popular acclaim in the area of oversight activities. Following a resolution, the House commenced an investigation to the $16 billion appropriated for Power between 1999 and 2007. The investigation revealed to Nigerians the level of rot that was our lot. In spite of controversies surrounding the report of the committee, the immediate benefits are that contractors that took huge sums of money without executing contracts are back to site and working while government is now confident to pump in more funds.
Similarly, the House Finance Committee investigation into the finance of government discovered that in the last five years alone over N3 Trillion was not remitted to the Federation Account by MDAs as they should constitutionally. The House is now looking into our laws to rectify defects leading to the unconstitutional expenditure of these funds or their possible misapplication or theft. If these unremitted funds are factored into our budget, Oil would begin to take the back seat in our financing of budgets.
The representative function of the Green Chamber equally received major fillip in the last two years in areas uncharted before now. In the first place, Bankole established the Constituency Outreach Committee that ensured members’ constituency presence through the establishment of functional offices. Furthermore, the issue of constituency projects was taken to a new height as it became a major appropriation issue to take care of MDGs projects across all constituencies of members. Despite the outcry arising from the misunderstanding of the concept in the public domain to mean members collecting money and executing contracts, the House under Bankole was able to ensure that projects that are of benefits to various constituencies are included in budgets for implementation by MDAs. While the MDAs have been foot-dragging in implementation, the House under Bankole is mounting pressure for improvement and the pressure in yielding results. By the end of the third quarter, the country for the first time achieved a 45 percent budget implementation instead of the yearly range of between 25 percent and 30 percent.
Bankole has taken representation of the people to the international level. Only recently, he led a delegation of Nigerian legislators to the Grand National Assembly of Turkey and one of the outcomes was a bilateral agreement and the citing of Turkey’s aid agency TIKO, the equivalent of USAID, in Nigeria with over 700 million Euros ($1billion) per annum for development. Also for the first time, President Umaru Yar’adua included Bankole in bilateral talks with the French Government last year and many BOT agreements were reached in the energy and road sector. It will be recalled that Bankole had earlier visited French National Assembly and was instrumental in this foreign policy initiative. Bankole equally positioned the House of Representatives strategically in the African continent by championing and sponsoring Hon Bethel Amadi to win the position of the keenly contested Vice President of Pan African Parliament.
The achievements of these last years have come with minimal confrontation with the executive arm, a departure from the last ten years. There is now a constructive engagement between the legislature and the executive with the president supporting the reformist legislative agenda of the Bankole-led House. Mr Speaker has also conducted an orderly House where national interest is the prime motivator of members.
As Bankole enters another year as the speaker, the major challenges are the constitutional amendment and electoral reforms, for which substantial progress has been made up to public hearings stage.
Chief Odunaro is Special Adviser on Communications to the Speaker, House of Representatives.