By Sonala Olumhense
The Nigeria Senate last week confirmed that it is okay for Nigerian schools to have no roofs and no libraries; for states and local governments to have no access and no roads; and for hospitals and clinics to have no doctors or medicine.
If you did not hear the story, it is probably because you were expecting to see it on CNN. But the Senate achieved it simply by confirming its subservience to the executive arm of government, and that it lacks the dignity or credibility to represent their constituents.
It is the only viable explanation for its “decision” to confirm as ambassadors and thereby save them from international legal exposure, General Muhammadu Buhari’s immediate past service chiefs: Gabriel Olonisakin, Tukur Buratai, Ibok Ibas, and Abubakar Sadique.
In effect, and as has been the story for over two decades, the Senate was working for the executive.
It is over two decades since I first cried out about the growing stench in the National Assembly, notably the Senate.
It was November 2002, when President Olusegun Obasanjo came face-to-face with an impeachment threat for constitutional violations.
Then entered Chief Arthur Nzeribe (PDP/Orlu East Constituency), who disclosed that there would be no impeachment. He said the threat had been paid for, at a cost of N300m, with N60m going to the Senate President and his supporters, and N3m to every other senator. Well, Obasanjo survived the threat and won a second term of office the following year.
It is further known to everyone that beyond surviving that threat, Obasanjo attempted to pluck a third term out of thin air despite achieving little. Among others, Buhari would say, “You know there was no power (electricity) under the previous administrations…Those people who say they spent 16 billion dollars on power, they will account for it.”
What is often less remembered is that the Senate also audited Obasanjo’s road project claims in July 2007. According to Senator Ayogu Eze who moved that motion, the Obasanjo government spent on that file alone “over N1 trillion…with minimal or no impact.”
Because it is the character of the Nigeria Senate, and because the Senate lacked the discipline to be anything but the handmaid of the executive or the PDP, nothing came of it.
Nigerians who are paying attention would remember that in 2009, Senate President David Mark declared on behalf of his colleagues that there was no need for any of them to have to revalidate themselves at the polls at the 2011 elections.
That plan was for each of the 80 PDP senators to be made an automatic candidate, thereby avoiding the party primaries.
“After every four years, after an election, people begin to clamour for their own local government to produce the next senator,” Mark declared. “It should be the turn of the local governments [which] are represented here now to produce the same people in 2011.”
Under pressure, the PDP refused to endorse that plan, and most of the senators drowned in a pool of their own arrogance, failing to survive the primaries.
What is perhaps even more ironic is that in 2010, Mr. Mark begged visiting delegations, including one from Kenya, to support Nigeria’s efforts to solidify its democratic institutions. In effect, foreigners—including other Africans—were being asked to take responsibility for building a house that the owners were themselves refusing to build.
Little wonder that in 2012, and in response to the threatened impeachment of President Goodluck Jonathan over poor budget implementation, Nzeribe would dismiss members of the National Assembly as being “too corrupt.” He said they lacked the moral courage that would arise from the respect of Nigerians.
In my view, the first stage of the decay of the Senate ended with the 2011 elections and the conclusion of the PDP’s “stealing-is-not-corruption” era. It had established an international reputation for greed, paying itself the largest legislative wages and allowances on earth. In 2012, the Senate also contrived to spend nearly N2bn for new Toyota Land Cruiser cars for members at a cost of N16m each.
I have observed, elsewhere, that the upper chamber became everything from a hiding place for former governors fleeing from their crimes in their states to a retirement home for former party operatives eager to be close to Aso Rock.
Governors used their second term to convert that office into a Senate seat, to enable them to relocate to Abuja and avoid the immediate consequences of their perfidy. Ministers who had publicly fleeced their offices found in the Senate a prize worth paying for. If you had stolen academic credentials, the Senate had a seat for you. If you had a talent for visiting sex toy shops and beating up the clerk on camera, the Senate had committees for you.
This character of irresponsibility, arrogance and greed became a game in 2015 with the taking-over of the Senate by a divided All Progressives Congress (APC). As you may remember, each senator obtained an official “loan” to buy a luxury car that year.
Only months later, as APC consolidated, the story broke that the Senate was again buying new cars for its members, at a cost of about N3.8 billion, a price that was widely thought to have been inflated. Senate President Bukola Saraki declined to obtain one at that point.
The Transition Monitoring Group described the move as “criminal,” and urged Buhari to stop the “hedonistic acquisition in these lean times.”
Again in 2018, the Senate was part of the National Assembly’s massive N6.6billion purchase of cars for its members at a time Nigeria had become the poverty capital of the world.
Only months after that, CNN reported on how a coalition of civil society groups was trying to block the purchase of luxury cars for principal officers of the Senate.
In December 2019, Senate President Ahmad Lawan announced that Buhari had approved N37bn for the renovation of the National Assembly complex. That figure was different from the N128 billion allocated for the Assembly. BudgIt, a remarkable civil society group which monitors government spending, revealed in March 2019 that since 1999, the Assembly had guzzled over N1.752 trillion.
This menace is possible only because of barefaced institutional collusion between the executive and the legislature. Between Buhari and the 9th Assembly, the cesspool has become complete because the only corruption Buhari acknowledges is looting.
Nothing demonstrates this collapse better than the Senate’s decision to confirm as ambassadors—and as a priority—the very symbols of Nigeria’s insecurity in the last five years.
Ironically, members of the Nigeria Senate like to refer to themselves as “distinguished.” But in the past 22 years, this has evolved into a cruel inside joke; they are not distinguished but decadent. Last week, there was little surprise that three days after the Senate confirmed its ambassadors of insecurity, hundreds of schoolgirls were abducted in Zamfara State. It is a reminder that Nigeria’s misery continues. Buhari will call another security meeting.
Clearly, most senators want only money and luxury cars. Not for them the deep questions of nation and nationals.
Originally published at Punch