Summation: This part (three) concludes the
extensively researched appraisal of the parliamentary stewardship of the
outgoing Seventh National Assembly of Nigeria. The appraisal was extended to
the State Houses of Assembly for the purpose of setting the records straight
and putting in public domain and consciousness of Nigerians the
fundamental standard of measuring the modern public lawmaking functions
in Nigeria. In the course of the referenced extensive research by ours ( International
Society for Civil Liberties & the Rule of Law- Intersociety), it was
indisputably established that parliamentary quackery and mercantilism have
steadily remained the bane of the lawmaking processes in Nigeria since the
arrival of the Fourth Republic National Assembly (1999-2003).
Through parliamentary
quackery, status quo or lazy lawmaking became the order
of the day and characterized the National Assembly of Nigeria. Legislative
intellectualism was nowhere to be seen. This resulted to abandonment of
numerous laws of the Federation needing attention and begging to be upgraded or
repealed including archaic provisions of the Constitution of the Federal
Republic of Nigeria 1999. Several legislative items that ought to be legislated
into law including numerous treaties and conventions were left
abandoned. Through parliamentary mercantilism, the lawmaking
processes in Nigeria became grossly commercialized and compromised. Most, if
not all public interest legislative items and issues, which are usually
inducement and bribery free, were abandoned or relegated for subsidiary
legislative functions like legislative probes, constituency projects,
budgetary legislation, etc, which took precedence over the former.
The State Houses of Assembly, within the referenced period became and still
remain the appendages of the State Executive Councils. The
five main bribery induced areas that have dominated the legislative businesses
of the State Houses of Assembly in Nigeria till date are budget
defense/passage, approval of commissioners/office appointments, consideration
of executive borrowings, approval of security votes and legislative probes.
Fundamental Challenges Before The
Eight Republic National Assembly: It remains an indisputable fact
that Nigeria as a multi cultural democratic country can never make any
meaningful progress unless its present politico-legal system is
surgically operated and re-arranged. The present system under reference created
and bequeathed to the country by the Fourth Republic National Assembly (1999-2003)
is anti democratic and enemy of development. A politico-legal system that
promotes primordialism and signs away 80% of the country’s commonwealth into
the pockets of a ruling political class of 17,500 citizens who constitute only
0.010% of the country’s 170 million people; urgently requires radical
re-visitation and re-distribution; else Nigeria will chronically
continue to crawl in its all socio-political ramifications. For Nigeria to face
realities of modern time and wriggle itself of present socio-political doldrums
there must be radical re-distribution of the country’s commonwealth
so as to aggregate and congregate enough funds for the general and optimum
development of the country. To do this, the country’s fiscal laws and policies
particularly on wage allowances and government overheads in all
its arms and tiers of government must be cut down by 50% across board.
Radical Review Of Allowances &
Overheads: Our study into the present state of
public workers’ salaries and pensions of the pensioners in Nigeria clearly
shows that workers’ salaries and pensioners’ pensions are not
responsible for the present situation whereby government and governance
are totally premised on recurrent and overheads criminal governance.
The Eight Republic National Assembly of Nigeria and their States counterparts
must also repeal all existing Special Life Pension Laws and
Schemes for all categories of executive and legislative public office
holders both at the Federal and States level. The most criminal part of the
official misapplication and misappropriation of public funds called “security
votes and service-wide votes” and their likes must be cut down by 60%
across board in the case of the President and the Governors and total abolition
in the case of other top public office holders including the Senate President,
the Speaker of the House of Reps and Speakers of the State Houses of Assembly;
likewise drastic downward review of their overheads. Allocation
of a whopping sum of N231 billion ($1.15 billion) to the so called “service-wide
votes” in the 2015 federal budget; for instance, is a height of
presidential criminality. This is more so when only N557 billion ($2.75
billion) was allocated to the capital expenditures in 2015, while an alarming
sum of N2.6 trillion ($10.3 billion) was allocated to recurrent expenditures.
The allowances component of
the personnel costs as well as the overheads component of the recurrent
expenditures is fully responsible for paucity of funds for capital
development in Nigeria. And if nothing radical is done to reverse the dangerous
trend, then Nigeria will chronically remain empty and nothing in terms of real
growth and development. Our study also shows clearly that if the above
referenced overheads including security votes as well as public allowances are
reviewed downwards, over N1 trillion ($5 billion) will be saved yearly from
Federal, States and LGAs and channeled into capital expenditures for the
development of Nigeria and Nigerians. For instance, a 50% cut in the
N550.8 billion ($2.75 billion) spent yearly in the allowances of the country’s
11,788 Local Government officials automatically saves and recovers N275 billion
($1.37 billion) for Nigerians. Another major task before the incoming
Federal and States legislatures in Nigeria lies on the need to quarantine public
loans/borrowings particularly from local sources. If the borrowings
must be granted, then they must be for productive use including job creation
and government revenue yielding. As a matter of fact, there is need for a
national moratorium on public borrowings in Nigeria.
Archaic Constitutional & Statutory
Provisions/Policies: In
addition to the foregoing, the Eight Republic National Assembly must review the
country’s state of 33 solid mineral deposits as well as the continuous
power epilepsy in the country for the purpose of their mechanization or industrialization.
This can be done by the referenced Federal legislatures by re-visiting the
country’s trade and investment policies and laws including the Land Use Act,
industrial, environmental, import and export laws. The privatization of
power in the country must be reviewed and possibly revoked.
On the age-long ethno-religious
violence afflicting the country, the Eight Republic National Assembly must
re-visit Section 10 of the 1999 Constitution for the purpose of re-phrasing it
to literally suit the country’s secular and multi-religious status.
Promotion and encouragement of any form of State religion must be prohibited
and criminalized. The right to the freedom of religion in Section
38 of the Chapter Four of the Constitution must be strengthened. In the case of
existing socio-religious criminal laws like Shariah Laws of the
Northern States which existence threatens the 1999 Constitution and the secular
status of Nigeria; there is need to return to the status quo. This means
returning to the Penal Code (operational in Northern Nigeria).
The Penal Code is a combination of Islamic and non Islamic Criminal laws,
borrowed from Sudan. The Penal Code under reference is also overdue for
amendment and upgrading.
There is also need for the incoming
National Assembly to create Ethno-Religious Violence & Related
Offenses Commission so as to manage the country’s age-long
religious and ethnicity violence and related disturbances including arrest and
trial of the perpetrators and their sponsors. The victims and their families
should also be entitled to adequate compensations from the government. Dates
should be set aside for National Sorry & Remembrance Day for
dead victims of the referenced violence and related disturbances. Creation of Electoral
Violence & Related Offenses Commission is also long overdue in
Nigeria. In the area of non domestication of various international treaties and
conventions highlighted in the part two of the report, the
incoming Eight Republic National Assembly must identify them and pass them into
law as urgently as possible.
Another important task facing the
incoming Eight National Assembly and their States counterparts is the need to
legislatively correct the monumental imbalances in the number and geopolitical
allocation of States, Local Government Areas (LGAs), Senatorial Districts and
Federal Constituencies in Nigeria. It is extremely important to inform that the
country’s commonwealth and public office personnel are distributed in
accordance with Section 14 (3) of the Constitution according to number of
States, LGAs, Senatorial Districts and Federal Constituencies allocated to each
federating unit (State) or geopolitical zone. In the world over, population,
not landmass is a pivotal criterion for allocation of resources and demographic
dividends. It is, therefore, shocking and disheartening to observe the present
gross lopsidedness in the allocation of LGAs in a democratic Nigeria per
geopolitical zone, which is as follows: Northwest (186), Northeast (112),
North-central (115), Southwest (138), South-south (123) and Southeast (95).
Kano and Jigawa States (formerly one State) alone have 77 LGAs.
In the area of Federal
Constituencies, which are designed in such a way that the transfer of national
resources and distribution of public office personnel are anchored on
proportionality; the referenced lopsidedness is very pronounced as follows:
Northwest (92), Northeast (48), North-central (49), Southwest (71), South-south
(55) and Southeast (43). The allocation of Senatorial Districts and States is
also proactively lopsided. While the Southeast zone is the least with 15
Senatorial Districts; Southwest, South-south, North-central and Northeast have
18 districts each, whereas the Northwest zone has 21. In the number of States,
the Southeast is the least with 5 States, while North-central, Northeast,
South-south and the Southwest zones are allocated with 6 States each. The
Northwest zone has the highest number of States with 7 States. We demand firmly
that the monumental imbalances above highlighted be legislatively re-visited
and corrected. There should be balanced number of LGAs per geopolitical zone;
else let the LGA system be removed from the Constitution and handed over to the
States.
Further to the foregoing is the need
for the incoming Eight National Assembly of Nigeria to amend and upgrade the
Criminal Code (operational in the Southern Nigeria) and the Penal Code
(operational in Northern Nigeria) to bring them in conformity with the new
Criminal Procedural Act (ACJ 2015) and the Evidence Act (amended in 2011) as
well as to factor them into modern electronic criminal investigation, evidence,
prosecution and sentencing management. To this effect too, the ouster clauses under
the right to personal liberty provisions in Section 35 of the
1999 Constitution in the Chapter Four or the Fundamental Human Rights should be
thoroughly reviewed and streamlined. For instance, there must be an end to
criminal investigations and trials in Nigeria. Specifically, Section 35 (4) (5)
(6) (7) must be revisited; otherwise the aim of passing into law the Administration
of Criminal Justice Act of 2015 will be defeated.
Other provisions of the 1999
Constitution requiring attention of public importance are Section 18 (3) (free
education) and Section 6 (6) (c) (non justiciablity of the Chapter Two).
The phrase “when practicable” should be deleted as it concerns
free primary and secondary education with their adult literacy programs. Also
paragraph “c” in Section 6 (6) should be deleted to judicially empower
Nigerians to hold the political office holders accountable at all times with
respect to the Fundamental Objectives & Directive Principles of the
State Policy of the Constitution(Sections 13-23). Section 12 (3) of the
same 1999 Constitution requiring a majority of the Houses of Assembly
passage of a national law before a treaty or convention can be domesticated;
should be done away with. The passage of the domesticating law should be
restricted to the National Assembly and the Presidency.
Intellectualizing
The Lawmaking Processes In Nigeria:
It is indisputable to assert that lawmaking processes in Nigeria since 1999
have failed woefully and fallen below the international standards. For the
country to catch up with its peers regionally and internationally, it must have
vibrant and cerebral Federal and State Legislatures. To this effect, members of
the Eight Republic National Assembly and their States counterparts must purge
themselves of mercantile dispositions and brace up for humanist and
selfless national and State legislative assignments. These involve use
of local contents or constant consultations with, and visits to
their constituencies/constituents so as to stay in tune with their socio-economic
realities and challenges with a view to addressing them legislatively.
There is also need for them to
embrace modern within the border and across the border legislative data
mining. In other words, there are three intellectual dimensions to
modern legislative functions across the world. The first is local/constituency
intellectual legislative dimension, which involves harnessing relevant
constituency legislative challenges for upright legislative attention. The within
the border intellectual legislative dimension involves exploring and
exploiting national social legislative realities for the purpose of harnessing
and addressing them legislatively. The third is across the border
intellectual legislative dimension, which involves realization that the
world is a global village and an aggregation and congregation of ideas
including legislative ideas for the purpose of selling to others the best
you have and buying from them the best they have
including their legislative best. The totality of this is called legislative
intellectualism.
To achieve the foregoing, the
incoming Federal and State Legislatures and their members must de-mercantilize
and demystify lawmaking processes in Nigeria and collectively and
individually create rooms for parliamentary amicus curiae for the
purpose of ensuring truly public oriented legislative functions including
passage of human rights and public interest and development friendly bills. To
ensure legislative intellectualism, in-depth and extensive
researches are needed as well as robust relationships with expert-institutions,
bodies and personnel. In this era of cheap information technology provided by
internet, every constituency office of a Federal or State legislator must be
computerized and electronically connected and stocked with all relevant open-source
information pertaining to key legislative decisions including bills
passed and oversight findings made as per executive activities of relevant
ministries, agencies, departments and parastatals as well as their non
government counterparts like multinational corporations and key educational and
health institutions. Every Nigerian citizen must be able to access and assess
all legislative information in Nigeria or any part thereof.
A modern legislative chamber that
disconnects itself from robust and constant interface with rights based
Civil Society Organizations and scholars and experts footed in natural and
social science disciplines including those in the Bench, Bar, Juridical,
Criminology, Security Studies, Medicine, Pharmacy, Sociology, Theology,
Politics, Diplomacy, Economics, Environmental Safety and Human Rights, is
obviously a legislative chamber of pre-Athenian age. On the other
hand, modern lawmaking membership requires being a thinker, a nimble, and a
virile agent of social change and a graduate of legislative studentship.
Finally, ideology is found lacking
in Nigerian politics and legislative chambers. Average Nigerian politician or
lawmaker is a political trader and harlot. Lack of political
ideology also leads to absence of political and economic think tanks
in the country. In the USA, there are the National Republican Institute and the
National Democratic Institute. There are various security and safety think
tanks affiliated or sympathetic to either Republican Party or Democratic Party.
There must be sound political ideology in Nigeria. The National Assembly of
Nigeria is also deeply parasitic and consumptive. Owing to its quackery and
mercantilist composition, it lacks the capacity to attract funds from
development and donor agencies.
The oversight committees that ought
to attract local and international corporate funding are busy chasing
their executive oversight bodies around looking for little loopholes for the
purpose of enriching their pockets at the expense of their
constituencies/constituents and generality of Nigerians. To succeed, the Eight
Republic National Assembly and their States counterparts must depart from the
referenced mercantilist, primordial and parochial legislative direction and
embrace humanist, selfless and intellectual dimensions to
lawmaking.
Signed:
Emeka Umeagbalasi, B.Sc. (Hons) Criminology & Security
Studies
Board Chairman, International Society for Civil Liberties
& the Rule of Law
+2348174090052(office)
Uzochukwu Oguejiofor, Esq., (LLB, BL), Head, Campaign &
Publicity Department
Chiugo Onwuatuegwu, Esq., (LLB, BL), Head, Democracy &
Good Governance Program
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