That Senator Adolphus Wabara would stoop down from the huge office of Senate President to deliver a lecture to Imo State officers of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) could tend to underline the humility close associates of the Senate President say of him. The timing of the lecture in Owerri last Tuesday when senators were muttering over supposed impropriety in the management of their finances, inextricably seemed to once again suggest a relationship between the stability of the senate leadership to the management of senators finances.
The gist among some senators and journalists was that the senate president in order to avoid recriminations from senators over the delayed payment of their allowances, had sought any means of escape from the senate chambers and hence the decision to flee to Owerri for the lecture to the Imo State office of INEC.
As senators sat in close session last Tuesday, with deputy senate president Ibrahim Mantu presiding, the rumour mill was further excited when news got out that Mantu himself had slipped out through the back exit of the senate chamber! Well, truth as Vanguard subsequently gathered, is that as senators waited for explanations from the bureaucrats for reasons for the delay in the payment of their allowances, Mantu had just gone through the back exit to receive some visitors who were waiting for him.
Whatever anyone would think of Wabara’s decision to go to Owerri, the fact is that the prevailing ambience of the senate building had by last Tuesday become very inhospitable to Senator Wabara or anyone perceived as an obstacle to the allowance of senators being promptly released.
Returning from a six week financially exhausting recess during which the lawmakers had to service all kinds of political interests in their constituencies, a number of lawmakers were actually in desperate need of liquidity. Their situation was further compounded by rumour (again rumours) that their quarterly allowances had been paid, but that it had been channeled by a ‘big man’ into either a fixed deposit or channeled to temporarily shore up the fortunes of a bank that the big man has a close relationship with. Whatever it was, when some bold senators brought the rumour to the floor of the senate in the closed door session of penultimate Thursday, a shocked Wabara was said to have offered to suspend the sitting and summon government officials to authenticate before the doubting Senators that the money had not been released.
The suspicion of some of the Senators, Vanguard learnt, was fueled by their ‘private investigations’ that the warrant for the estimated N1.5 billion allowance had been dispatched to the national assembly. It was, however, learnt that the warrant came without cash backing, a development that was confirmed by Princess Florence Ita-Giwa, Special Adviser to the President on National Assembly, who was called in last Tuesday to douse the growing tension. Speaking to journalists at the lobby of the national assembly last Tuesday she assured that the cash backing for the quarterly allocation would be coming by that Tuesday and if not, the following day. Mischief makers and rumour mongers that hover around the senate lobby and chambers, however, say that whatever Princess Ita-Giwa said was all meant to douse tension and prevent another round of crisis. Irrespective of the rumours, her presence and the subsequent release of the funds by last Wednesday, no doubt helped douse tension.
With the background of the delay in the release of the lawmakers legitimate entitlement, it was thus reassuring that a senator would move to detach the financial aprons of the senate from the executive arm.
Senator Emmanuel Agboti, increasingly carving a reputation as a rebel, last Wednesday introduced to the senate floor a bill seeking to grant financial independence to the legislative arm of government. The bill which is co-sponsored by Senator Abu Ibrahim and titled An Act for the National Assembly Budget to be charged as first line charge on the consolidated federal revenue (non-negotiable) seeks to place the funding of the national assembly on the first line charge of the consolidated fund of the federation.
The implication of the bill is that funds for the legislature would, once approved, would be sourced directly from the nation’s purse without the bureaucratic bottlenecks that come from releasing warrants without cash backing. The proposed law would, inevitably, lead to the total financial liberation of the national assembly from the aprons of the executive.
Therefore, it was not surprising that Senator Mantu who presided when the bill was tabled last Wednesday would dub Senator Agboti, an otherwise cool headed and easy going old man, a freedom fighter.
Presenting arguments in support of the bill, Agboti had first observed the unique Constitutional role of the national assembly. “The function of the national assembly is to make laws for peace, order and good governance in the federation or any part thereof with respect to any matter included in the exclusive and concurrent legislative lists as provided for in Parts l & ll of the Second Schedule to the 1999 Constitution. To perform these functions effectively the national assembly needs to be properly funded and most especially independent of any other arms of government.
“This bill seeks to ask for our independence from the Executive.
This bill is about Freedom - no more no less. To deny the legislature of her independence is a total rape on the altar of democracy. Any separation of Powers without a corresponding financial autonomy is a farce.”
While noting that the principle of separation of powers between the executive, legislature and judiciary was a hallmark of the presidential system, he said that “direct funding for these bodies from the consolidated Federal Revenue Non-Negotiable would enhance their operations and protect their autonomy in a democratic set-up.
“With such direct funding, none of the organs of government will be starved of the much-needed funds to perform its constitutional duties or be subjected to the whims and caprices of the other.”
He noted that the direct funding of parliament was the practise in other democracies, he said that it was on the imperative of having its independence that the judiciary with the active support of civil society organisations helped to realise the direct funding of the judiciary as a first line charge in the present dispensation. Presenting an enticing bait to his colleagues, Agboti, who is also chairman of the Senate Committee on Downstream Petroleum, deposed that the legislature was now the only arm presently dependent on another arm for its funds.
Concluding that the bill would help to raise the self-worth of Senators, Agboti, quoted from a report of the Revenue Mobilisation, Allocation and Fiscal Commission on the withdrawn revenue allocation bill (2003), which called for the direct funding of the national assembly among some other agencies of government. Given that the legislators were as at the time of the presentation of the bill just coming out of the stress of having their allocation delayed by bureaucratic procedures, it would have been assumed that the lawmakers would hike on to the bill to assert their freedom.
However, the lawmakers in deference to the constitution noted the constitutional lacuna, to wit that the legislature is not mentioned among the statutory bodies that are entitled to draw its finances from the first line charge of the consolidated revenue fund. Accordingly, the bill was forwarded to the Constitutional Review Committee with a charge that the recommendations of the bill be considered in the proposed draft.
It is thus commendable that despite all the stress that the legislature goes through in extracting its budgeted funds from the presidency that the lawmakers would not infringe the letters of the Constitution to assert their liberation from the executive arm of government. In other matters of financial importance of direct relevance to the rest of the polity, the Senate and particularly, its leadership continued to demur on taking firm action on the prescription by the Central Bank that all banks in the country achieve a minimum capital base of N25 billion. Sensing that opponents of the proposal had initiated action in the senate to reverse the proposal, the CBN last week embarked on its own legislative lobby. However, as at the time of going to press, efforts by the CBN to gain the attention of the senate leadership was yet to be granted.
There were suggestions that Senator Wabara, whose inclination against the policy is well known, was bidding time to frustrate a meeting between the CBN top management and the senate leadership which is itself split on the issue. Observers rightly or wrongly interpret his opposition to flow from his family’s interest in one of the country’s medium sized banks. While Wabara has openly come out against the policy asserting that it would encourage money laundering, the Senate Chief Whip Senator Kassim Oyofo has made a public campaign in support of the proposal, saying that it would sharpen the focus of the banks towards the development of the real sector of the economy. Wabara’s capacity to influence the senate against the policy is limited by the deep financial losses several lawmakers have incurred through a number of the banks which went under in the recent past. Several of the lawmakers are just hoping that the proposal would come to the senate floor so that they can deal with the banks.
On other matters of finance, the Senate last Wednesday referred President Olusegun Obasanjo’s ‘information’ that he was granting loans totaling $45 million to Ghana and the island nation of Sao Tome and Principe to its Committee on Judiciary and Foreign Affairs. The referral is against the background of muttering in the polity that the president lacks the constitutional capacity to appropriate the nation’s finances in the articulation of his foreign policy goals. While several of the lawmakers have expressed support for the loan as a means of asserting the nation’s foreign policy, the procedure of circumventing parliament in that effort is at issue. But in proving its case, the senate and indeed the legislature would have to ensure that it has the required financial liberty to sustain itself, and herein lies the importance of the proposal from Senator Agboti, the legislative freedom fighter!
