Ahead of the 1st anniversary of the 10th Senate on June 13, JOHN AMEH reviews some of the high and low moments under the watch of Sen. Godswill Akpabio in 12 months.
JUNE 13 is already knocking on the door of the 10th Senate, a date to mark its first 12 months after inauguration on the same date in 2023. How time flies, it’s often said; for a legislative term of four years (2023-2027), a year is gone within a twinkle of an eye!
For a legislature, perhaps 12 months is short to expect the 109 senior lawmakers led by the former two-term Governor of Akwa Ibom State, and ex-Niger Delta Minister, Senator Godswill Akpabio, to fully appraise the Green Chamber of the National Assembly outside the routine duties of passing budgets, whether main or supplementary appropriation bills for both the nation and the statutory ones for bodies such as the Federal Capital Territory Administration (FCDA); the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC); the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC); among others. So, the it has passed the country’s highest budget figure yet (if we leave the naira/dollar exchange rate out of the mix) -N28.7 trillion for 2024. This is esides earlier passing supplementary bills to the original N21.8tn budget being implemented by the administration of former President Muhammad Buhari, which ushered in the ‘renewed hope agenda’ of the reigning President Bola Ahmed Tinubu. .
The Senate has also passed or considered a number of legislation in the last 12 months, including the South-East Development Commission Bill; the North-West Development Commission Bill; the South-West Development Commission Bill; Bill on Enhanced Salaries and Allowances for Judicial Officers; the Administration of Criminal Justice Act and Retirement Age of Magistrates bills; Economic and Financial Crimes Commission; Code of Conduct Bureau; Revenue Mobilisation, Allocation and Fiscal Commission; and Fake Drugs and Unwholesome Processed Food (Miscellaneous Provisions) bills, among others.
Security challenges
Insecurity remains a major worry for the country. Following in the tradition of the 9th Assembly, the current Senate is paying attention to searches for solutions to banditry, kidnapping, farmer/herder clashes, murders and the constant threats posed to the safety of the citizenry by insurgency. As of the last count, the 10th Senate has held a series of solution-seeking meetings with security chiefs to offer legislative interventions and passing over 10 motions/resolutions on insecurity. It has proposed a national dialogue on herder/farmer conflicts and interfaced with the executive on the current economic, food inflation, interest/exchange rates crises bedeviling the country to recommend solutions in a supportive role to the government.
Constitution Review
This is another area the Senate has indicated signs of working. On February 14, it named a 45-member constitution review panel chaired by its deputy President, Senator Barau Jibrin, to collate opinions of stakeholders towards producing a much-improved constitution for the country. The Jibrin committee, which began sitting immediately, listed among others, state police, local government autonomy, devolution of powers and transparency in electioneering -issues agitating the minds of most Nigerians -as some of the areas it would focus on in this renewed bid to dissect the nation’s grundnorm. The 10th Senate is conducting major investigations, including the probe of the N30 trillion Ways and Means expenditure incurred by the Buhari administration; 11,886 abandoned projects since 1960 and its supportive effort in trying to resolve the recent industrial dispute with the organised labour over a new national minimum wage.
Of promises and wait-and-see
On inauguration day on June 13, 2023, Akpabio, in his address to senators, made promises and declarations to signpost the expectations of the 10th Senate. In one line, he said, “We will put members of the executive on their toes, especially the ministers when they are ready to work. We will follow project-by-project and ensure that there is no delay.” In another breath, he stated: “I have an opportunity of serving as a governor and I warned my people who worked with me that I didn’t steal to invest in politically motivated infrastructure. Therefore, we shall carry out very serious oversight functions to ensure the protection of the resources of the country.” He added: , “We will not betray the people of Nigeria. Government is a continuum and the Senate is no less. We will strengthen the legislative space in continuation of the laudable efforts made by the 9th Senate. The issues that will confront us will be gender matters. We don’t have a lot of women in the Senate. We need to have more women in the Senate. We shall pay important attention to people living with disabilities and the vulnerable in our society. We will ensure legislative actions that will empower our youths and stop them from being recruited into banditry, unknown gunmen, Boko Haram and others.
“We will pay attention to insecurity. We will work closely with the executive to ensure that we can sleep with our two eyes closed, and we can also travel by rail, road to any part of the country without fear.
“We will expand the legislature to improve the revenue stream in the country. Our current President has a track record in that respect when he became the Governor of Lagos State in 1999, the state was not getting up to N600 million from Internally Generated Revenue (IGR) but today with the programmes that he has put in place Lagos is getting between N60 to N61 billion every month in terms of IGR. Nigeria can do so to improve the revenue of this country so we can tackle most of the debts we have.”
While the Senate may engage in self adulation, the opinions of independent assessors see the senior legislative arm as not doing much to ask questions or tackle the executive on some of its policies, nor getting close to keeping its promises to the people. A development economist, Dr Brian Dorgu, holds the view that the 10th Senate has hardly interrogated executive decisions in the last 12 months, beginning from the “sudden removal of fuel subsidy.” According to Dorgu, in a monolithic, petrol-dollar dependent economy like Nigeria, a “subsidy removal policy must first undergo serious dissection by the government, working in collaboration with relevant stakeholders for parties to make the appropriate assessment and prepare for the consequences, including making adequate provisions to cushion the harsh effects on those at the lower rung of the ladder.” He said this vital step was not taken ahead of the policy, while the legislature too merely joined in “cheer-leading” the decision without “making any determined commitment to suggest policy reviews.”
The economic expert also observed that there had been no bold move by the Senate to oversight the ministers as Akpabio promised, beyond the “routine budget defence question and answer sessions, the outcome of which produced no remarkable difference in the livelihood of Nigerians.” He noted: “Take the case of the 2024 budget for instance. From N25tn, the figure ballooned to N28.7tn; that means more funds, through the action of legislators, went to the MDAs than originally earmarked for them.
“The expectation was that the same lawmakers should have invited these ministers or begun to do an assessment of how much they spent so far under one year and the deliverables. Agreed that one year is such a short time to assess a government, but that wouldn’t be an excuse for many ministers to have nothing to showcase in 12 months, as proven in the ongoing ministerial performance assessment.”
However the Presidency has repeatedly defended subsidy removal on the grounds that Mr President was left with no choice than to take on the ‘monster’ head-on. It points to the fact that Tinubu’s predecessor only made provisions for subsidy up till June, 2023, an indication that technically, the previous government had already removed the monster; while Tinubu ‘buried’ it to help the economy to breathe.
The Chairman, Senate Services, Senator Karimi Sunday, quickly countered Dorgu, saying that one of the easiest jobs is to criticise the legislature, being that it is the bastion of democracy that must accommodate all shades of opinions. He explained: “It is easy to criticise, and anybody can criticise us. But, let me tell you, there is a lot that we are doing in the 10th Senate; senators work way above what you may consider to be core legislative duties in this country. I can understand that our democracy is growing, and we appeal for patience so that Nigerians will appreciate the work of the parliament.”
Sunday argued that lawmakers do so much behind the scenes to improve the livelihood of citizens amidst the current hardship more than passing bills and motions, which could hardly be quantified. He added: “I personally sponsored a bill on the amendment of the constitution for the establishment of state police. That bill is progressing. If it passes and the constitution is amended, state police can be part of the solutions to the insecurity we are all crying about now. My colleagues are doing many other things. I am not saying that we are there yet, but the 10th Senate has been doing a lot. We are planning a summit on herder/farmer clashes to address the insecurity arising from their disputes. There is also a bill on the establishment of cattle ranches that was passed for second reading a few days ago.
“There are other interventions made by the Senate on the unemployment situation in the country and how the federal government can create jobs and so on. However, if we have done all these under one year and people still say that we have not done enough, oh, good. Yes, I say we are not there yet, but we have done well as representatives of our people. They are proud of us. My people of Kogi-West Senatorial District are proud of me. “
Controversies
This Senate has courted a number of controversies or taken decisions that did not seem to meet the expectations of Nigerians. One of the earliest ones was the “prayers” the Senate President sent to the mailboxes of his colleagues in August, barely two months into the life of the 10th Senate. Money was sent to the bank accounts of senators, probably sitting allowances for the screening of ministerial nominees. At the end of the exercise, Akpabio, momentarily forgetting that the session was on live recording, told senators that a “token” had been sent to them. He announced: “In order to enable all of us to enjoy our holidays, a token has been sent to our various accounts by the clerk of the national assembly.” Suddenly realising his gaffe, he tried to modify it by saying, “I withdraw that statement.
“In order to allow you to enjoy your holiday, the Senate President has sent prayers to your mail boxes to assist you to go on a safe journey and return.” Nigerians, in reacting to the development, expressed disbelief, asking how much public money was regularly shared among their lawmakers and whether such cash was budgeted for or legitimately earned.
Last March, the Senate suspended one of its own for three months –Senaor Abdul Ningi -for accusing the legislature of ‘padding’ the 2024 budget by N3.7tn. He was quickly suspended after the Senate dismissed his allegation on the grounds that he used the wrong figures in his computations. The hurried suspension of Ningi, who maintained his stance and never apologised personally, was interpreted in the public to mean that the Senate was perhaps desperate to hide something Nigerians didn’t know about.
The most recent controversy was generated by the passage of the National Anthem Bill, 2024 reverting to the country’s independent anthem, ‘Nigeria We Hail Thee’, from ‘Arise O Compatriots’, which had been in use since 1978. Both the Senate and the House of Representatives passed the law on the anthem change with the ‘speed of light’, according to the Chairman, Senate Committee on Judiciary and Human Rights and Legal Matters, Sen. Mohammed Monguno. The decision generated mixed reactions across Nigeria, the majority of opinions saying that their lawmakers danced to tunes called by Mr President, who had long nursed a desire to make the anthem reversal.
The Senate has three years ahead in this journey and much is expected of it; Nigerians can’t wait to see how legislature-executive partnership can put more smiles on their faces.
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