{"id":440028,"date":"2011-06-13T06:00:00","date_gmt":"2011-06-13T06:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.ghanamma.net\/2011\/06\/13\/reps-new-house-new-challenges\/"},"modified":"2011-06-13T06:00:00","modified_gmt":"2011-06-13T06:00:00","slug":"reps-new-house-new-challenges","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2011\/06\/13\/reps-new-house-new-challenges\/","title":{"rendered":"Reps: New House, new challenges"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n<\/p>\n

JOHN AMEH examines the performance of the Sixth House of Representatives and the tasks ahead of the newly inaugurated lawmakers<\/span><\/p>\n

After several weeks of politicking, horse-trading and permutations, members of the House of Representatives finally elected their presiding officers on Monday, June 6.<\/span><\/p>\n

The emergence of Aminu Waziri-Tambuwal, the Sokoto State-born lawyer, as speaker, and Mr. Emeka Ihedioha ( Imo State ) as deputy speaker, was against the preference of the Presidency and the dominant Peoples Democratic Party.<\/span><\/p>\n

Mulikat Akande-Adeola, also a lawyer, was the preferred choice of the powers that be in the PDP. But all that is now old news, the lawmakers having made good their resolve to elect a candidate of \u201cour choice as the Speaker of the Seventh House of Representatives.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

By polling 252 votes as against Adeola\u2019s 90, the lawmakers demonstrated their determination to strengthen the independence of the legislature.<\/span><\/p>\n

Beyond the opposition to the zoning arrangement of the PDP, one of the key reasons the lawmakers gave for rejecting the preferred candidate, was to pick a leadership that was rich in the knowledge of legislative duties and capable of steering the House clear of the mistakes and scandals of the recent past.<\/span><\/p>\n

This reason carries a question mark, ( Tambuwal and Ihedioha having been part of the leadership for years), but the electorate may give them the benefit of the doubt and hold them by their own word at the end of another four years.<\/span><\/p>\n

Tambuwal himself admitted in his acceptance speech that the Sixth House had let Nigerians down, apologising and pleading for forgiveness.<\/span><\/p>\n

He said, \u201cWe acknowledge that the dignity and integrity of this Honourable House have been called to question. We must possess the humility that commands introspection.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWe accept responsibility for our failures and ask Nigerians for their forgiveness. Mindful of lessons of the past, we will open a new chapter.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWe will commence a new era of responsibility. This House will act responsibly in all its endeavours. We will be responsive, transparent and accountable in all we do.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWe must recognise one common truth \u2013we are the people\u2019s representatives. This is their House of Representatives and we are here as their trustees.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

The Sixth House under former Speaker Dimeji Bankole passed 187 bills out of a total of 481 introduced; it recovered over N1tn unspent funds from ministries, departments and agencies and discovered about N5tn unremitted revenue by revenue-generating agencies, among others.<\/span><\/p>\n

It passed popular bills including the Freedom of Information Bill (now an Act) and the AMCON Bill.<\/span><\/p>\n

However, by the time the tenure of that House ended on June 4, its image was at the lowest ebb, owing to self-inflicted injuries.<\/span><\/p>\n

Herein lie the challenges before the new House and the lessons lawmakers can learn from the mistakes of the past in a bid to win back the confidence of Nigerians.<\/span><\/p>\n

Lawmaking, one of the main functions of the legislature, was treated with levity by the former House, though compared with the Fifth House, it passed around 87 bills more. It was also to the credit of the Sixth House that the 1999 Constitution was amended for a record three times. Yet, it could have been better.<\/span><\/p>\n

Lawmakers devoted more time to passing frivolous motions and resolutions than bills much to the consternation of Nigerians. This created a situation where over 294 out of a stock of 481 were abandoned by the departing legislators.<\/span><\/p>\n

As tempting as the argument that quality and not quantity of bills passed matters, it is also true that many of the \u2018quality\u2019 ones passed made no remarkable improvement on the lives of the people.<\/span><\/p>\n

The new assembly should work on the attitude of members to duty, especially their contribution to bills and debates.<\/span><\/p>\n

At the Committee of the Whole, a critical stage where reports on bills are considered, most lawmakers choose to walk out while a large percentage of the few who stay back, doze off.<\/span><\/p>\n

The Sixth House left about 59 bills holed up at the Committee of the Whole, as lawmakers failed to treat them. Among them was the Petroleum Industry Bill. 51 bills did not make it to the Committee of the Whole, while 142 others were awaiting second reading (simply put, they \u2018died\u2019, with the expiration of the tenure of that House).<\/span><\/p>\n

The new House has a challenge of getting lawmakers to sit down and earn their pay by considering reports on bills. The new Deputy Speaker, Mr. Emeka Ihedioha, has a daunting task here, as it is his responsibility to preside over the Committee of the Whole. He has to show how much the House has turned a new leaf by encouraging a reasonable number of his colleagues to sit in the Committee of the Whole.<\/span><\/p>\n

On budget and oversight duties, the Seventh House should avoid the ritual of inviting ministers and heads of agencies to come and read out their budget proposals but dig beyond the surface by scrutinising the details. Though the last House started well in recovering over N1tn unspent funds through budget scrutiny and oversight, it later lost steam, allowing some \u2018powerful\u2019 ministers and MDAs to take charge of the game.<\/span><\/p>\n

Legislators in the Sixth House seemed keen on asking agencies to increase their budgetary proposals than insisting that they explained how they spent funds approved for them in an outgoing fiscal year.<\/span><\/p>\n

It was funny to hear legislators ask questions such as, \u201cAre you sure this money will be enough for you? Don\u2019t you think that we should increase the vote for this subhead?\u201d This was the same agency that could not utilise its allocations in the previous year and returned N500m or more to the treasury!<\/span><\/p>\n

The new House members should also learn from the mistakes of their predecessors by not abusing their oversight responsibilities. During oversight visits, some committee members embarrassingly used the opportunity to intimidate, blackmail and threaten heads of agencies to compel them to accede to certain requests.<\/span><\/p>\n

Again, a situation where an agency being assessed on budget performance shoulders the accommodation, feeding and transportation in some cases of legislators, calls to question the reliability of the report of such a visit. The new House promised by Tambuwal must avoid this path.<\/span><\/p>\n

Closely linked to this is that the House must approach all investigations or probes with the seriousness and sense of national duty that they require.<\/span><\/p>\n

Except for a few cases like the probe of the N64bn Abuja second Runway Project, most of the probes conducted by the last House cost tax payers hundreds of millions of naira but produced no results at the end of the day.<\/span><\/p>\n

Probes should not just be about getting media headlines by summoning ministers or threatening to order their arrest. The probe of the $16bn allegedly spent on the power sector between 1999 and 2007 led to nothing, as the same House which conducted the investigation later threw out the report of the Ndudi Elumelu Committee on Power.<\/span><\/p>\n

Incidentally, it was Tambuwal, as the Deputy Whip of the House in 2009, who supervised the committee that watered down Elumelu\u2019s report. Now as the Speaker, Tambuwal has to navigate the House away from conducting probes for the sake of getting headline attention.<\/span><\/p>\n

The Sixth House probed the various oil block bids carried out in the country between 1999 and 2007 as well as contracts for the Turn Around Maintenance of refineries and importation of petroleum products, but that was all. The reports on the probes were never considered by the House.<\/span><\/p>\n

The House also conducted an extensive investigation into the \u201crot\u201d in the Nigeria Customs Service and why the agency has been underperforming as a revenue source over the years. Although, the House Committee on Customs and Excise headed by Mr. Yakubu Dogara laid its report before the House, nothing else was heard about it. It is hoped that the Tambuwal-led House will not toe this path.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/p>\n

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The emergence of Aminu Waziri-Tambuwal, the Sokoto State-born lawyer, as speaker, and Mr. Emeka Ihedioha ( Imo State ) as deputy speaker, was against the preference of the Presidency and the dominant Peoples Democratic Party. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":440029,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-440028","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-local-news"},"yoast_head":"\nReps: New House, new challenges - Ghanamma.com<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2011\/06\/13\/reps-new-house-new-challenges\/\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:title\" content=\"Reps: New House, new challenges - Ghanamma.com\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:description\" content=\"JOHN AMEH examines the performance of the Sixth House of Representatives and the tasks ahead of the newly inaugurated lawmakers After several weeks of politicking, horse-trading and permutations, members of the House of Representatives finally elected their presiding officers on Monday, June 6. 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