Weighing the sixth senate on legislative performance

OLUWOLE JOSIAH chronicles the activities of the outgoing senate and writes that it has recorded a mix of successes and failures in the last four years

The life of the Sixth Senate is fast coming to a close, even as the dawn of a new Senate is at hand. The transience of the life of the National Assembly is determined by Section 64(1) of the 1999 Constitution which states that, “The Senate and the House of Representatives shall each stand dissolved at the expiration of a period of four years commencing from the date of the first sitting of the House.”

The sixth senate held its inaugural meeting on June 4, 2007 and this august gathering is billed to dissolve on the same day in 2011. The dissolution brings to an end all legislative businesses and only those that have passed from the legislature to the executive will survive.

Lawmaking is in the heart of legislative activities, simply because the legislature is primarily created to make laws. As one of the three arms of government, it is saddled with the responsibility of making laws for the good governance of the country. Section 4 of the Constitution specifies that, “The legislative powers of the Federal Republic of Nigeria shall be vested in a National Assembly for the Federation, which shall consist of a Senate and a House of Representatives. The National Assembly shall have power to make laws for the peace, order and good governance of the federation or any part thereof with respect to any matter included in the Exclusive Legislative List set out in Part I of the Second Schedule to this Constitution.”

Besides approving budget, the legislature also has the power of oversight, investigations and issuing warrant of arrests on any individual in violation of the Constitution or any other Act of Parliament. Section 88(1&2) spells out this powers and it states, “ Subject to the provisions of this Constitution, each House of the National Assembly shall have power by resolution published in its journal or in the Official Gazette of the Government of the Federation to direct or cause to be directed investigation into — (a) any matter or thing with respect to which it has power to make laws, and (b) the conduct of affairs of any person, authority, ministry or government department charged, or intended to be charged, with the duty of or responsibility for – (i) executing or administering laws enacted by National Assembly, and (ii) disbursing or administering money appropriated or to be appropriated by the National Assembly.

“The powers conferred on the National Assembly under the provisions of this section are exercisable only for the purpose of enabling it to – (a) make laws with respect to any matter within its legislative competence and correct any defects in existing laws; and (b) expose corruption, inefficiency or waste in the execution or administration of laws within its legislative competence and in the disbursement or administration of funds appropriated by it.”

Section 89 further empowers the National Assembly to request any documents, records or information at the disposal of any agency of the Federal Government in pursuance of Section 88 of the Constitution. It could also summon and cause to appear before it or any of its committees, any person, who, after having been summoned to attend, fails, refuses or neglects to do so and does not excuse such failure, refusal or neglect to the satisfaction of the House or the committee in question.

These are the cornerstones of legislative oversight. The National Assembly has continued to pride itself as the bastion of democracy and had revelled in the depiction of the legislature as the last hope of the common man. Its overwhelming powers to whip the executive into line and give the people the needed representation is the reason why expectations are high.

The continued prevalence of the plague of corruption and the inability to stem the tide of financial mismanagement and outright pillaging of public treasury by the civil service bureaucracy is taken as a major failure of the National Assembly to carry out a thorough and transparent oversight. Within the lifespan of the Senate, the federal budgets have suffered delays and poor monitoring.

While considering the general principles of the 2011 budget, senators admitted that the failure of oversight had resulted in the executive recklessness in the implementation and submission of the annual budgets.

Members have been in agreement that they had not followed every naira in the budget for the benefit of the ordinary Nigerian, making the annual budget a mere ritual. The National Assembly and indeed the Senate has the powers to peep into the activities of the agencies of government and expose corruption, but not much of this has been carried out by the Senate.

There were instances where budgets were returned to the National Assembly for amendment and review following misgivings by the Presidency that the figures were increased unnecessarily, creating problems of implementation for the executive. The padding of the budget usually is done between the committees of the National Assembly and the ministries, agencies and departments who would come from behind to complain that the amount allocated to them was too small to meet their budgetary requirements. This practice has characterised the lifespan of the Senate and sterilised the oversight powers of these committees.

Instead of the legislature coming out to expose corruption, as required by the law, the Central Bank Governor, Lamido Sanusi, had once attacked the National Assembly on its over-bloated overheads, saying the legislature spends 25 per cent of the total overheads of the Federal Government as calculated from the 2010 budget.

Although President of the Senate, David Mark, denied the allegations, he promised that the overheads of the legislature and indeed the Federal Government would be drastically cut down to make funds available for capital projects.

Earlier the Senate had grappled with the issue of jumbo pay. The Senate and the House have continued to draw flaks from the public over the bloated allowances that they were allocating to themselves. The Senate, through its Spokesman, Ayogu Eze, had also refuted allegations, saying members did not earn such amounts as bandied by the media.

He said what legislators earned was in line with the recommendations of the Revenue Mobilisation Allocation and Fiscal Commission which was passed by the National Assembly.

The two chambers have also received knocks for delaying the process of the amendment of the 1999 Constitution, an action that eventually created undue pressure on the polity leading up to the conduct of the general elections in April. Although the process started in January 2009, the First Amendment was eventually passed a year and six months later.

The delay occasioned by a conflict between the two houses over who leads the Joint Review Committee created a stalemate that lasted for many months. Although both houses eventually went their ways, their separate approach to the amendment wasted valuable time.

The Senate appears to have received most of public bashing on the delay in the passage of the Freedom of Information and Petroleum Industry Bills. Non-Governmental Organisations have continued to mount pressure on the legislature to pass the bills.

On the FOI, the Senate President, David Mark, was up against the tide of public opinion, when he expressed his reservations on the bill. His position was that libel should be criminalised and journalists should not be allowed to hide under the cover of the tradition of non-disclosure. It was seen that the arguments from the Senate tended to confirm the fears of Nigerians that the legislators had a lot to hide. Although it had passed the bill, it is believed that the versions passed were highly watered down.

On the PIB, many groups had accused the Upper House of subjecting itself to the manipulations of some powerful organisations. Allegations of bribe for PIB passage are yet to abate as the Senate expires in a matter of days from now. The bill has not been passed, as the Senate has only approved one clause out of the nearly 100 clauses and may not be passed before the end of the Sixth Senate.

Despite these obvious shortcomings, the Senate has conducted itself fairly well and has the rating of being mature and a major stabiliser of the nation’s fragile and fledgling democracy. It has succeeded in leading the project of effecting a comprehensive amendments to the 1999 Constitution and the Electoral Act 2010 which served as the foundation for the acceptable elections conducted by the Prof. Attahiru Jega-led Independent National Electoral Commission.

It has continued to credit itself with the invocation of the Doctrine of Necessity that brought President Goodluck Jonathan to power in the country’s trying moments. Nigerians agree that the Senate played a fundamental role in dealing with the cabal at the Aso Villa when the late Umar Yar’Adua was hospitalised in Saudi Arabia. Passing such bills as the Sovereign Wealth Bill, the FOI bill, Money Laundering and Anti-Terrorism bills, Income Tax Bill and other crucial bills that would affect the economy and Nigerians positively, have endeared the Senate to Nigerians.

The achievements of the present Senate will no doubt set the blueprint for the seventh senate. If the incoming senators would improve on the value of representation and pursue their constitutional mandate, Nigerians would have something to celebrate at the end of the next four legislative years.