The Tenth National Assembly and challenges ahead

A date of June is likely for the inauguration of the 10th National Assembly, after the new President-in-Office made a proclamation for it in line with the provisions of the 1999 Constitution. Although in its early stages, the frenetic play of leadership positions in both chambers, its complexities and the seven political parties that created the legislature, instead of the usual two leaders, rivet observers.

But the bigger picture is the challenges facing the 469 members of parliament, 109 senators and 360 members of the House of Representatives. Their agenda is awaiting the legislature. The scale of the challenges does not call for a weak statement of the leadership’s usual intentions on inauguration day. With numerous crises in national security, economy, education, service delivery, corruption and lack of accountability in government, the 10th assembly has its work cut out for it. It requires its members to keep their eye on the ball.

It also means that the pursuit of selfish interests, obscene and undeclared subsidies and emoluments, and commitment to oversight functions must give way to patriotism and duty. This country is, as some would say, like a patient in an intensive care unit who needs a lot of care. It is the hope of the public that this member of parliament fulfills the necessary vision and mission to achieve the public good.

The journey through this furnace of integrity will begin with the process of choosing how transparent his top officers would be, which is already mired in the dirt amid wild allegations. They must be careful not to disappoint Nigerians!

The Senate’s confirmation of the president’s ministerial nominees is a ritual that has been confused time and time again since 1999. Candidates are usually presented without their portfolios attached, which does not allow for rigorous scrutiny. The opposite is true in the US and other Western democracies, where we modeled our system. Over the years, candidates with legislative backgrounds, especially those in the National Assembly, have been asked to take a plea and leave. The rest are asked general questions due to a lack of information about their proposed publication. Practice involves placing round pegs in square holes. This disgusting routine needs to change. When mediocrities become ministers through the action or inaction of a cold legislature, the country ends up losing.

Globally, parliamentary business requires mental rigor and legislators who are aware of the provisions of their country’s constitution and corpus of laws to be effective. The Ninth Assembly’s performance in these indices is not happy at all. Often, empty seats, MPs chewing on something or engaging in private discussions while debates are taking place are commonplace. These offenses attack the sensibilities of the taxpayers, who watch live broadcasts of some of these shows on television. That era should go with the outgoing assembly.

It has been incompetence and lack of rigor The ninth National Assembly chaired by Ahmed Lawan to approve loans in series President Muhammadu Buhari The scheme used to pay salaries and overheads in flagrant breach of the Fiscal Responsibility Act 2007. The law, in Article 41, stipulates that borrowing will be for capital expenditure and human capital development only, as Article 44 Article 1 emphasizes. the government must specify the purpose of the loan and a cost-benefit analysis must be attached to the application.

Failure to meet these essentials explains why the country’s debt rose from $10.3 billion in June 2015, two weeks after Buhari assumed office, to $40.06 billion in June 2022. The underlying negligence is absolute. The World Bank has warned that this debt profile is “unsustainable” in the long term. What’s more, with the recently secured $800 million in relief for the vulnerable, in the face of the imminent increase in fuel subsidy removal that will be imposed on citizens.

With persistent fiscal deficits in budgets and the absurdity of using 96.3% of revenues to service debt in 2022, according to the World Bank, the X legislature should stop approving more loans and help the government look inward. There are leakages that need to be blocked through legislation, while strict supervision is essential, and the recovery of public funds from private and corporate portfolios must be initiated. The country’s stamp duty revenue, which is curiously predictable, is being considered by the House. The money is still with the banks that collected it on behalf of the government.

In the oil sector, multinational corporations regularly owe Nigeria royalties, taxes and other fees. Their indebtedness was $6.8 billion in 2019, an anomaly highlighted in the NEITI report. There is a proven case of $17 billion in stolen crude between 2011 and 2014, which the government promised to recover. Sixty government agencies failed to remit the N3 trillion generated in six years, the Senate Finance Committee found in 2021. From all directions, the public treasury is being stolen. It is a painful expression of the disastrous performance of the National Assembly as the custodian of public accounts, as stated in Article 80 of the 1999 Constitution, which deals with powers and control over public funds (remittances and expenditures).

It is void for Buhari and the Ninth Assembly for non-implementation of Stephen Oronsanye’s report on the restructuring of 541 federal agencies to deliver service. 38 of these agencies are to be eliminated, 52 were to be merged with others, and 14 of them were to be returned to ministerial departments.

This would save Nigeria huge cost in government. Instead of cutting agencies, he created more. Former Head of Service, Ebele Okeke, who chaired the panel on the report’s latest White Paper, expressed dismay at the existence of unnecessary agencies in education and health, which are the creation of personal bills by lawmakers. To get rid of them, he advised a dialogue with the parliament. The report is before parliament for action. The 10th assembly must develop the sense of responsibility necessary to improve public finances.

Insecurity is undoubtedly Nigeria’s biggest nightmare as the north-east is plagued by jihadists while the north-west is prone to kidnapping and banditry. In the North-Central, murderous herdsmen have made life unbearable for farming communities, forcing residents to live in Internally Displaced Persons (IDP) camps, while the South-East has been hijacked by unknowns and Biafra irredentists. In the South-South, militancy in the Niger Delta has continued to undermine the oil industry, causing gaps in Nigeria’s OPEC crude oil production quota of 1.8 million barrels per day. Such a frightening security scenario should prompt a legislative intervention on the best way to improve the country’s policing. The Fifth Amendment to the 1999 Constitution has never addressed the limitations of a single-tier police system that is not consistently enforced.

As a result, the 10th National Assembly should consider the repeal of the previous one as a national emergency. Ironically, many outgoing MPs fear returning to their constituencies due to insecurity. In some cases, a few of them were stoned and chased by angry youths for not doing so. As the epitome of representative democracy, it depends on the clear interest of the new lawmakers to take the safety of life and property seriously through radical reforms and effective oversight to avoid being caught in the web of their negligence.

A sore point in every set of laws is budget begging. Budgets are drawn up every year for the benefit of members of parliament, thus distorting the scope of spending and making their implementation difficult. It has led to several confrontations between the Parliament and the presidents. In the 2022 budget, for instance, President Buhari disapproved of the inclusion of 6,576 own projects in the budget by the members of parliament, costing N$36.5 billion. It is an annual abuse of power. Even in the ministries, the story is the same. The Ministry of Agriculture received 1,500 new projects in the budget, undoubtedly due to transactional motivations. President Buhari said: “Most of these projects that have been inserted relate to matters that are essentially the responsibility of states and local governments; and they don’t seem to have been properly conceptualized, designed and costed.” It is a violation of the Public Procurement Law.

Banana pills are always available in both houses of the National Assembly. A former member of the House, Farouk Lawan’s earlier conviction was upheld by the Court of Appeal in February 2022 and he was sentenced to five years in prison for a $500,000 bribe he took in a 2012 fuel subsidy fraud investigation. the senator recently went to prison for a money laundering conviction. These are the lessons for lawmakers.

For the first time, the House Minorities Caucus is in the majority with 182 members, one more MP than the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC). It is hoped that this will help foster the strong opposition, robust debate and oversight that any democracy needs to thrive.