Ideal legislature of a developing country, By Tonnie Iredia

At any gathering, whether public or private, the average Nigerian legislator would take advantage of every chance to demand recognition and respect from the community. The claim made by the lawmaker is based on the justification that the legislature, out of all the branches of government, is the best representation of democracy because it is frequently the only one to perish when tyrants violently seize power. Because of this, it is claimed that lawmakers are the only true representatives of the people. But if the truth must be told, the majority of Nigerians are not happy with the way their purported real representatives have been acting in their official capacities or generally. At the state level, Nigeria does not have legislators; instead, state governors’ special assistants for lawmaking are present. This article, however, specifically refers to federal legislators.

Some might think it’s unfair to start the new legislative year with harsh criticisms of lawmakers who haven’t started working yet, given that the 10th National Assembly was only inaugurated five days ago. Many of the members aren’t really new, but it makes sense to give them time to adjust before analysts start shining any sort of spotlight on them. In fact, this is a good time to point out the subtle differences between legislators in developed democracies and those in developing societies, whose main concern should be how to support rapid national development so that the general standard of living can be raised.

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The best time to ask those regarded as high-ranking Nigerian legislators is at this point so they won’t contaminate the minds of newcomers. This is due to the large number of harmful events that have occurred in our National Assembly in the past. Furthermore, what Nigerians have seen of their lawmakers over the past month indicates that things will likely continue as they have in the past. First off, the 10th Assembly may be a sharper rubber stamp than its immediate predecessor because, in violation of our constitution’s provisions, the legislators were unable to choose their own presiding officers. Instead, the executive branch of government personally selected those who eventually became presiding officers.

Why was it necessary to expand a leadership selection procedure that was explicitly intended by the constitution to be internal to the legislature to the rest of the world? Why did our legislators spend millions of naira on media placements and other forms of nationwide campaigning, even for those of us who were eligible to vote? What message did the nation receive from the commercialization of the procedure? Could those who engaged in such displays of wealth have hoped to provide assistance without recovering their enormous outlays? We are not about to see a different type of legislators, according to logical answers to these questions, especially in light of the fact that many members of minority parties reportedly negotiated to join “lucrative” committees before endorsing the executive’s chosen candidates.

According to the senator who was defeated for senate president by the executive candidate, both the winner and the loser of the election compromised the senators-elect. Maybe it would be simple to understand the executive’s motivations if they were trying to prevent the election of opposition presiding officers who might subvert the ruling party’s mandate through mischief. However, when all of the candidates were from the same ruling party, such interest became incomprehensible. Few people understood the executive’s desperation to install “friendly” presiding officers as a result. Irrational requests, such as those for large loans, are they approved without being scrutinised? Or, to put it another way, does the executive not intend to run a transparent and reliable system of governance and, as such, need the cooperation of the legislature?

Intriguingly, the eight years of events have demonstrated that the executive does not benefit from having a so-called friendly legislature. For instance, during the final four years of President Buhari’s administration, the president grew enraged by the legislature’s exploitative attitude to the point where he had to scream in protest over what he called the latter’s “worrisome changes” to annual budgets. There were as many as 6, 576 new insertions into the budget at one point, which were not included in the discussions between the relevant members of the executive and legislature. It was discovered that many of the inserted items were not covered by the federal budget. It was also found that 500 items, totaling at least N380 billion, were duplicated. Buhari must have abruptly realised how difficult it would be to battle a “friendly” legislature. Thus, the new story of reliable friends conflicts with historical precedent.

Additionally, it didn’t appear that the National Assembly was aware that Nigerians were not impressed. Legislators did little to nothing to assist Nigerians during the Covid 19 pandemic. Additionally, they did nothing about the legislators’ political class, which hoarded and kept palliatives out of the hands of the general public. Nobody helped the rural populace during the disastrous new naira policy by erecting temporary financial infrastructure to lessen suffering in areas devoid of banks. All bills in favour of women were also rejected by the male-dominated legislature. These are the unique characteristics of a developing society that those in high political positions should not ignore.

Sadly, our legislators continued to be self-serving like their elected predecessors. The legislature granted itself immunity and started to look into and confront officials of all other government institutions implicated by the auditor’s report when, for the first time, the Auditor-General of the Federation was able to muster the courage to expose irregularities and illegal spending in government. The financial scandals detailed in the National Assembly report went unnoticed until the end of its term. However, the House of Representatives was specifically charged with spending over N5.2 billion at various points on numerous unfinished projects and giving advances of N258 million to 59 employees who never retired. Will the new House be able to recover these funds to raise more money for development?

The public should be informed about the conditions and limitations of the current friendly alliance between the executive and the legislature. If it’s about cooperative federalism, the legislature needs to shed its constructivist timidity to be more attentive to its constitutional obligations. For example, before a nominee can be appointed to a position, the senate has the authority to confirm them. Maintaining a system in which some nominees are asked to “bow and go” is a dereliction of duty because everyone should be thoroughly vetted and found suitable before being approved. No known law exists in Nigeria today that gives senators the authority to exempt any nominee that the law specifies needs to be approved.

The project Nigeria, to which both parties should be committed, would remain a mirage if the legislature didn’t help its friend, the executive, appoint only fit and proper people into offices. Therefore, the Senate ought to insist that the nominees for the positions to be filled go along with them in order to perform their duties more diligently. This is neither unfavourable nor hard to come to terms with. If not, the hateful, outdated system of blind clearance will never succeed. We had a contentious general election earlier in the year due in large part to the number of unqualified people the executive sneakily added to the otherwise impartial INEC, which the senate defiantly cleared.

Could the 10th Assembly guarantee that it won’t do so in the interest of friendship with the