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lawmakers

Nigerians lambast lawmaker’s wife for ’empowering’ youths with sugarcane

by Folarin Kehinde September 12, 2024

written by Folarin Kehinde

Hajiya Fatima Aliyu Aminu Garu, wife of Hon. Aliyu Aminu Garu, Member Representing Bauchi Federal Constituency, has been criticised for allegedly distributing sugarcane sticks to some youths as an empowerment initiative.

Pictures of the event has attracted ridicule and criticisms for the lawmaker’s wife.

Weighing in on the situation, Bauchi State Chapter of the Peoples Redemption Party (PRP), expressed disappointment.

In a statement, State Secretary of the PRP Abdulazeez Haruna, said, “This gesture falls short of the expected standard of representation for the good people of Bauchi Federal Constituency.

“As a party, we believe that genuine representation goes beyond mere tokenism and selective empowerment programs. The people of Bauchi Local Government Area/Federal Constituency deserve more than just meagre handouts and superficial gestures. They deserve meaningful developmental initiatives that address their pressing needs and concerns.”

“We are calling on Hon. Aliyu Garu to account for his actions and inactions in the National Assembly. Specifically, we demand to know what tangible developmental initiatives he has brought to the people of Bauchi Local Government Area since his election. How many bills has he sponsored that have positively impacted the lives of the people? What concrete projects has he initiated or supported to improve the welfare and livelihoods of the constituents?

We urge Hon. Aliyu Garu to demonstrate his commitment to serving the people by working towards tangible benefits that transcend mere tokenism and handouts. We also call on the people of Bauchi Local Government Area/Federal Constituency to hold their representative accountable for his actions or lack thereof. It is time for a change in representation that truly reflects the aspirations and needs of our constituents.

“While we stand ready to provide a more effective and people-centered representation to the good people of Bauchi Local Government Area in particular and Bauchi State at large, we equally demand better representation from Hon. Aliyu Garu and all other public office holders who have been entrusted with the responsibility of serving the people,” Haruna added.

All efforts made to get the reaction of the member representing Bauchi Federal Constituency was not successful but one of his aides told Daily Trust that the lawmaker had travelled out of the country on an official assignment.

September 12, 2024 0 comments

Matawalle’s judicial victory: Matters arising

by Leading Reporters February 13, 2022

written by Leading Reporters

By Tonnie Iredia

The Federal High Court, Gusau Division last week, was reported to have affirmed Bello Matawalle as governor of Zamfara state. The verdict of the case which was to oust Matawalle for defecting to another party did not surprise many because the reason for it is not new.

One point that has been consistently canvassed is that the defection of a governor from one party to another is not one of the conditions listed in our constitution for the removal of a governor from office. As a result, anyone who is eager to remove governor Matawalle or any of his colleagues from office has to follow the legal and appropriate provisions of the law. If so, why were very senior and respected lawyers part of the move by the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) to use the judiciary to sack the Zamfara governor for an offence that is said to be unknown to the law? Were they testing the waters or hoping that some activist judge might be swayed by the need to help society attain good public policy? However, the last may not have been heard of the case because only last Thursday, the Federal High Court Abuja granted a plea by the PDP to join governor Matawalle as a defendant in another suit seeking his removal.

While we are confident that the judiciary would in due course deal with the issues raised, many politicians and perhaps some curious individuals are becoming more concerned about how best to deal with many subjects which are also reportedly not known to the law but from which some people are reaping legal fruits. One such subject is what now looks like the participation of a non-existent entity in the government of Zamfara state.

The story behind it all is not difficult to recall. During the last general elections in the country, the ruling party in the state, the All Progressives Congress (APC) was declared winner of both the governorship and majority of the seats at the House of Assembly by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC). The judiciary however over-turned the verdict having found the APC guilty of breaching the rules of the game. In other words, in the eyes of the law, the APC did not participate in the election and was even asked to pay a fine of N10million. From nowhere, some politicians have ‘circumlocuted’ to now conceive an inexplicable idea that some people answering the same name of APC and recognized by the national leadership of the APC now constitute the state government.

Expectedly, people are now asking a series of questions: (a) Can the APC which in the eyes of the law was non-existent in a state produce a governor for such a state? (b) Should the law recognize anyone who purports to be an APC governor in Zamfara state? (c) Should we discountenance those who think Matawalle should not be assisted to sustain such weird claim? (d) Are such persons, not raising a fundamental poser which public policy actors should ponder over quickly and seriously too? While not discussing the rationality of the judicial affirmation of Matawalle as governor especially because this column is not the correct location for that, it seems obvious that the judicial pronouncement has a technical foundation. In which case, the scenario may not be the fault of the judiciary as it is not expected to base its decisions on issues of morality or emotions and pressures of the moment. If so, it is time to begin to consider the other options that can be employed to make our democracy have a proper character.

In fact, like many other defects such as the issue of fake credentials by candidates which we have since been dealing with, it is also critical to identify strategies by which society can stop unstable actors who jump from one political divide to another from spending precious governance time on politicization. While it is likely that the Zamfara case would have been easily handled if it had arisen during the electioneering era especially during election petitions, time cannot legitimize inappropriate behaviour.

If it is allowed to remain, the contradictions it poses for the political system can pollute our democracy. To start with, it overturns the wishes of the people. During the 2019 general elections, the people of Cross River and Ebonyi states voted for the PDP. The defections of Governors Ben Ayade and Dave Umahi respectively from the people’s party of choice to their newly found party of interest, are quite capable of negating the democratic tenet of the sovereignty of the people. The governors neither sponsored themselves nor were they voted to represent themselves. They were supposed to be in office to represent the people.

As i have argued at some other fora in the past, the sovereignty of the people is the prime tenet of democracy. In every society, power belongs to the people because they are the source of political power. Everything in politics is supposedly done on their behalf by their representatives. When it is the other way round as happens in parts of Nigeria, it merely reverses the legitimacy of government which ought to be premised on the consent of the people. It is perhaps for this reason that many scholars have continued to argue that electoral victory is superior to judicial victory.

We need to take a more critical look at the subject and return power to the Nigerian people. While the power of the judiciary to settle election disputes has been helpful, the judiciary should not have the last say in determining the wishes of the people. A re-run election which gives the people the last say might be better. For instance, there is no proof that such a fresh exercise in Zamfara state which would have excluded APC having been disqualified would have been won by PDP that was second in the first exercise.

In Nigeria, party supremacy may be a myth in practice but in law it is real because the Nigerian constitution provides that only persons sponsored by political parties can contest elections in the country. To further confirm this privileged position of Nigeria’s political party system, the judiciary has consistently held that it is political parties that win elections and not their candidates.

As stated earlier, elections that were won by PDP in Cross River and Ebonyi states can at no point in time become APC victories simply because their governors found cause to change ship. It is worse in Zamfara, where APC was not one of the contesting parties in both the governorship elections and in the entire general elections of 2019. We cannot continue to criticise our parties as having no distinct manifestos and at the same time pretend not to know that politicians who can switch parties at will cannot in truth stand for anything distinct or original.

I consider it simplistic to argue that the defection of a governor is in line with the principle of freedom of movement. My position is that there is time for everything. A decent governor can resign at any time to join another party which he suddenly finds more appealing but it certainly amounts to usurpation for such a governor to hold-on to the mandate of another party while moving to a new party. Such a governor betrays the people who voted for him because he was known as the candidate of their preferred political party.

He also betrays many others such as those who stood as his nominees as part of the requirement for eligibility to contest elections in Nigeria. What the unending issues of materialistic defections suggest is that the constitutional provision which bars individuals from contesting elections as independent candidates has since become superfluous. Too many of such contradictions in our system ought to be expunged. They are the real issues which our law makers should put in the front burner of our so-called constitution amendment instead of issues of personal and party interest.

February 13, 2022 0 comments

Headlines Opinion

It Is Time For Legislators To Extend Their Oversight visit To Sambisa

by Leading Reporters May 14, 2021

written by Leading Reporters

Last Thursday, I was slightly amused listening to Senate President, Ahmed Lawan pouring encomiums on the service chiefs of Nigeria’s military.

When the report by the broadcast media on the event started playing, I had thought it was a valedictory session where some war veterans were taking a well-deserved bow. But when it became clearer that the day’s celebrants were the General Lucky Irabor led new service chiefs, I had to put off my initial doubt to watch more closely to find that the colorful reception by the Senate for the team was real and that it departed substantially from the old familiar song whose chorus was that no one knows into what use the military had put the huge resources appropriated and allegedly received by them.

It was as if the Senate had just discovered how well the funds had been meaningfully utilized. If so, what was the source of the new information? I mean was it credible evidence obtained from oversight function? I just hope the Senate’s position was not informed by the predictions of any of our vision-seeing members of the clergy!

Whatever the source, one thing which is certain, is that no one can blame a television viewer for being cynical; after all, the general narrative on ground has been one of despondence in which the public had been made to believe that funds meant for the military were usually diverted by the top hierarchy leaving nothing for the troops to prosecute the insurgency war.

Indeed, when the last service chiefs left office, there were reports of jubilation in military circles especially at the war front which tended to validate the rumour that military funds were truly misappropriated. Although there were official attempts to clarify the statement credited to the National Security Adviser NSA that weapons and equipment that should have been bought were not bought, the general feeling which subsisted was that the funds were missing. There was in fact the allegation by the International foundation against corruption that about N10.02 trillion spent on the security sector in Nigeria has had no audit report from 2015 till today.

So, why was the Senate President presenting a vote of thanks in favour of the military? Could it be that the legislature suddenly discovered that the military leaders were innocent of all charges against them and that the funds reportedly appropriated for the military never got to them? I found that slightly hard to believe because Zainab Ahmed, our Minister of finance, budget and national planning who should know, had confirmed two days earlier, that all the funds were released. The Minister spoke at an interactive session with members of the Senate Committee on the Army.

She also asserted that apart from funding the budget of the army almost 100 per cent, there had been a lot of instances where the security leaders went to the president, got special approvals and still got the funds. Interestingly, the Chairman of the same committee, Senator Alli Ndume had continuously complained that funds for the Army were not received by the Army. How then, can one understand our insurgency fight where the appropriation, delivery and receipt of the resources for the fight are turned into a story of several versions?

This confusion would not have arisen if oversight functions are implemented creditably in Nigeria. But painfully they are not. Elsewhere, what touches a nation most is the concern of all; in which case, Nigerians should have been mobilized by government to focus on our current major problem which incidentally concerns the security and welfare of the people. The legislature represented by her several committees on the military should have designed a monitoring framework covering when a request is made by the military, when it is approved, when it is dispatched, when it is received and how it is spent.

We ought not to have subjected our military to the distraction of spending much time pursuing approved funds. In other words, a team of legislators should have since been stationed in Sambisa by way of symbolically carrying supervision to the very point of assignment as they do, all the time, especially with lucrative agencies such as the NNPC. If that had been done, the new service chiefs would not have, on assumption of duty and indeed before settling in, be called to account for purchases made by their predecessors. Why was there no oversight at the appropriate time?

Honestly, oversight functions by the legislature have in the last one year dropped significantly. In August 2020, thirty-nine (39) Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) issued a joint statement accusing the National Assembly of not only a drop in her oversight functions but a general lack of commitment to duty. The CSOs arrived at this conclusion after a study of the performance of the lawmakers for the legislative year beginning from June 2019 to July 2020 in which they found that the legislators sat for only 149 days instead of the 181 days prescribed by the constitution. This may have been caused by the propensity of the legislators to enjoy several holidays and adjournments. For example, although all other public sector services had only two days declared as public holidays last month for Easter, the legislators were away for the same festivity for three weeks.

They have in the last three days already begun their own Sallah holidays, yet to be officially declared by government and they are not expected back till May 18th. We therefore agree with the CSOs that there ought not to be a drop in legislative activities by the National Assembly at a time when its role has become more critical than ever before, in joining the Executive to find solutions to the unprecedented challenges currently facing the country.

We also believe that our legislators should revive their mechanism for their constitutionally approved oversight functions provided, they remove from it, the tendency to commercialize the subject. The old order whereby legislators blackmailed some Ministries, Departments and Agencies into settling their travelling costs etc. must be halted. In addition, there is the need for the legislature to always get to the logical end of every investigation. Not many were pleased for instance, with how the allegations made publicly that NDDC contracts were cornered by legislators was swept under the carpet.

This attitude has always adversely affected public expectations whenever the legislature jumps into every matter as if nothing must go past them without their input. The posture no doubt has a fair share in the failure of Nigeria to have strong institutions. When for example, there is some emergency in any part of the country, and the very next day the legislature passes a resolution ‘directing’ NEMA to help the victims of the occurrence, it suggests that the entity has no capacity to independently face its mandate. It also removes from them, personal initiative and discretion. Such interventions are only rational in cases where the resolution was provoked by transparent lethargy on the part of the relevant societal institution.

It is worse when the legislature disrupts the schedule of duties of public bodies through incessant summoning of chief executives who are never allowed in what looks like ‘a show of ego’ to delegate their appearance. It is particularly offensive when it is done to the military that should be encouraged to completely face the nation’s current difficulty of incessant killings in several parts of the country.

By Tonnie Iredia

May 14, 2021 0 comments