NATIONAL ASSEMBLY WATCH(A focus on Nigeria’s National Assembly

Week ending September 15, 2012)

As the two chambers of the National Assembly reconvene this month, Nigerians would be watching to see how the legislators tackle outstanding and lingering national issues. Here are some.

Where are we on the Farouk Lawan case:Nigerians would like to know where we are on the House of Representatives’ investigation of the allegation of corruption against its member, Rep Farouk Lawan (PDP, Kano) by businessman, Femi Otedola.It would be recalled that following the January Uprising in Nigeria, where citizens protested the increase in price of petrol and the claim of huge spending by government on subsidy to oil marketers, the House of Representatives began a probe of the fuel subsidy regime. The committee which was headed by Rep Farouk Lawan seemed to garner a lot of goodwill from Nigerians who daily watched the live transmission of the committee’s public sittings where they drilled oil marketers.On the submission of the report however, there seemed to have been a bit of an untidy situation. On one occasion, Rep Lawan urged the full House to amend a portion of the report by deleting Zenon Oil from the list of ‘indicted’ oil companies, apparently based on fresh facts known to the committee or an error of inclusion of that company in the first place, a request the House accepted after requesting Lawan to confirm that the decision was agreed to by his committee.Afterwards, Otedola claimed he was pressured by Lawan to pay a bribe of $620,000 to the lawmaker to secure the reprieve, but added that he did so in order to expose Lawan for corruption.Lawan, who initially denied collecting any money was to later admit collecting the money but also claimed he did so to expose the businessman for corruption.As at the time of going on recess, the matter was stalemated because, after a committee of the House questioned Lawan in private, Otedola refused to have a private session with the committee, insisting on a public hearing.As the House reconvenes, citizens want to see a speedy conclusion of this matter, but more importantly, they want the findings of the Rep Farouk Lawan Committee to be implemented.

Where are we on the probes?At the last count we had seen the Senate probe of the pension fund scam; House and Senate probes of the fuel subsidy payments and the House probe of the capital market etc. Our National Assembly could in a way be referred to as the ‘House of Probes’. But Nigerians know better than to think much about the probes. The country has had several of such ‘celebrated’ probes in the past that did not amount to much.The list includes the Senate probe of the activities of the Petroleum Technology Development Fund (PTDF) in 2007, just before the end of the term of the fifth parliamentary term (2003-2007), an exercise which unearthed embarrassing abuse and waste of public funds by principal members of the presidency. There was also the Ndudi Elumelu-led House

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of Representatives Committee of the sixth parliament (2007-2011) that probed the power sector contracts. That too came with earth-shaking ‘revelations’ on national television but it went nowhere in the end. Could the present parliament take a different course?

Finally, the PIB:After months of going forward and backward, the Executive arm of government finally submitted the Petroleum Industry Bill to the National Assembly. The bill was sent to the legislature just before it went on recess, meaning that it could not be read a first time in any of the two chambers.Much has been said about this bill as the magic needed to reform the petroleum industry and, perhaps, give Nigerians the best benefit as citizens of a petroleum producing country.Although the ‘authentic’ version of the executive bill was subject of controversy, the Ministry of Petroleum Resources finally uploaded a copy of the bill on its website. http://hmpr-ng.com/index.php?option=com_docman&Itemid=113 Citizens would want to see a speedy completion of legislative work on this all-important bill.

Get on with the Constitution amendment:In the period before the National Assembly recess, different members and committees had expressed, piecemeal, the nature of amendments to the Constitution and sometimes even proposed such. The Nigerian Constitution was promulgated by the military in 1999 at the time it handed power to the new civilian administration. Soon afterwards, citizens and Constitutional studies experts pointed out several areas requiring amendment. Attempts at amending the document have not been too commendable. Under the Obasanjo administration (1999 to 2007), there was a late effort to do so in the twilight of his administration, even as the process was hinged on an alleged attempt to extend his tenure. This led to the collapse of the amendment bid.The next attempt came again towards the end of the last parliamentary session and term of the executive arm. It turned out to be the first time the Constitution would be amended, but most of the amendments were those of high political interest to the political class.It was hoped that the seventh parliamentary session which began in June 2011 would speedily commence to amend the Constitution before it is yet another election season. If this hope must be met, it has to happen now, with participation of citizens, not an elitist assemblage at zonal public hearings.Apart from that, citizens would want to see the resultant amended document subjected to referendum by citizens. That is the good practice internationally and Nigeria’s shouldn’t detract from that process.Some of the issues that have been thrown up in discussions on Constitution amendment are state police, guarantee of judicial independence, devolution of power and local government autonomy or strengthening as well as restructuring.

Budget implementation:Just before proceeding on vacation, the House of Representatives was angry that the level of implementation of the federal budget was low. A member (Femi Gbajabiamila, ACN, Lagos) even suggested the commencement of impeachment proceedings against the President. Although the call was not adopted, members were generally displeased about the

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level of budget implementation. The executive later defended the implementation as being higher than the legislature alleged.Nigerians would want to know the truth on this, even as the 2013 budget proposal is expected to be presented to the parliament this month, going by the promise of the finance minister during the recess period.

Security issues:By far the most urgent of all national issues in the country today is the lingering state of insecurity. Citizens look up to their representatives to take steps to address this issue. Sadly, the National Assembly itself was a direct victim of the insecurity when Senator Dantong (PDP, Plateau) was killed by armed invaders in his state in July.

The Bakassi issue:Nine years after Nigeria lost the Bakassi Peninsula ownership case to Cameroon at the International Court of Justice in The Hague and years after the two countries signed the Green Tree Agreement on the handover of the peninsula by Nigeria to Cameroon, residents of the area are still complaining about being short-changed.Claiming that the Green Tree Treaty was not binding on Nigeria unless ratified by the country’s parliament, the Bakassi people want the parliament not to ratify the agreement just as they declared independence. This too is another hard nut for the National Assembly to crack.

Naira restructuring:While the National Assembly was on recess, the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) announced its decision or plans to introduce the N5000 note in 2013. It also plans to convert the lower denomination of the Naira into coins. This was greeted by controversy with a vocal segment of the public condemning the plan. One of the early condemners of the plan was the Senate Committee Chairperson on banking, currency and other financial institutions, Senator Bassey Otu (PDP, Cross River) who opined that a project of such magnitude required parliamentary approval.Possibly, Senator Otu’s position was his personal view, since his committee may not have met during the vacation period to consider that issue. However, the Senate and the House of Representatives are expected to discuss this and typically invite the CBN Governor to meet with them on the issue before they take a decision.

From the above issues and more, the work of the National Assembly is cut out for them as they return from their two months of recess.

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