Towards A Better Legislature -By Andrew Oota

The Nigerian parliamentarian is first and foremost elected to make laws for good governance at all levels, be it local, state and national levels.

At the local government level as a third tier of government the lawmakers in this category are reffered to as councillors, those at the state level are reffered to as members of state Houses of Assembly while at the national level, the bicameral legislature, akin to that of the United States of America, which providedes for two chambers has the Senate and the House of Representatives with 109 senators and 360 members respectively.

Suffice to say that there are three arms of government in Nigeria, namely executive , judiciary and the legislature each with a clear cut out responsibility.

It is important to stress that the legislature makes laws as a constitutional responsibility as well as amongst others investigate, oversight and recommends punitive measures against impunity but not inclusive of project execution and implementation. The judiciary has the preserved responsibility and rights of interpreting the law as well as to punish those who breach the provisions of the laws, while the executive arm of the government shoulders the sole responsibility of execution and implementation in all its ramification.

It is worthy of mentioning that, giving the constitutional responsibilities of parliamentarians at all levels in Nigeria, it will be fulhady for Nigerians to assess lawmakers on the strenth of how many roads, boreholes, schools, hospitals etc they have personally fixed, drilled or constructed in their respective constituencies within four years, which is the constitutional tenure for all elected public office holders.

Lawmakers at all levels in Nigeria should rather be assessed on the number of bills, motions, oversight investigative activities standing in their names. Their contributions on the floor should also be the yardstick for measuring their performances.

The responsibility of providing infrastructure for the citizenry should be the exclusive reserve of the executive arm of the government.

However, Lawmakers in Nigeria can be assessed and rightly so on the basis of how many projects they have attracted to their constituencies through lobby and superior arguments in convincing their colleagues on why certain projects should be established in their various constituencies.

Issues of scholarships and securing employments for constituents into federal government established institutions are not constitutional responsibilities of lawmakers, introduction of contractors for jobs are equally not within the constitutional purview of lawmakers. However, as leaders, people look up to their political leaders with a lot of expectations, therefore, securing emplyments and award of scholarships for constituents are placed on the shoulders of lawmakers, but should not be used as criteria for re-elections, because these are constitutional responsibilities of the executive arm of the government.

The contradictuon however is the so called “constituency allowance “ paid to lawmakers, which no conscious efforts have being made by the National Assembly to address once and for all.

The impression out in the public is simply that, members, especially those in the National Assembly take bogus constituency allowances without any justification.

Unfortunately, in all attempts to justify the constituency allowances, National Assembly members have not mentioned , the scholarships, provision of infrastructure such as building or renovation of schools, hospitals, construction of roads, bridges, markets, drilling of boreholes, provision of electricity transformers etc as some of the projects that they embark upon, using the constituency project allowances.

Apparently because it is not their responsibility to provide such basics, yet they are assessed based on how much of these they have done, unfortunately their inability to mention it as what takes chunk, if not all of the constituency allowances raises eye brows on allowance, hence the continued debate, misconception and most cases out right ignorance.

It is believed to be four times a year, but part of the problem is that, even the basics that lawmakers go out of their constitutional responsibilities to address, using the constituency volts with the view to better the lives of their people, is sometimes not commiserate with the amount being bandit around, which no sufficient effort has being made to correct since it started trending the moment the former president Chief Olusegun Obasanjo introduced it.

There is a school of thought that believes that perhaps, the title ‘constituency project’ should be changed to ‘legislative consultancy allowances ‘, that way, Lawmakers will be more productive and their output will be enhanced. The allowances will now be used to engage consultants on Bills, drafting of motions, hiring of lobbyists and researchers who would add value to the individual lawmakers and the entire parliament at large. This will see a better parliament that will effectively discharge its constitutional responsibilities of lawmaking for good governance.

This will enhance the quality of debate on the floor, where lawmakers will be abreast and exhibit full knowledge of issues before them and equally avoid repeataion like it is the case in nearby South-Africa.

The quality of debate on sensitive and technical matters on thr floor of our parliaments loses steam, becauae of lack of knowledge and understanding of the issues, the crash programmes organized by the National Assembly management to build the capacity of lawmakers are not enough because they make little or no impact giving the lack of coordination, quality of resource persons and even the planning. It is even worse at the states and local government levels where state government officials simply see such work shops and seminars as avenues of looting public funds, rather than building the capacity of lawmakers.

This will clearly set the parliament on the right track to be able to perform optimally and avoid the distractions of providing infrastructure, avoid the hue and cry over constituency allowances and allow the executive do its work of providing the basics and ensuring that unemployment is addressed as a mandatory responsibility.