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Taming deadly anger among House members
By Uchenna Awom
National
Assembly Correspondent, Abuja
Speaker
of the House of Representatives Aminu Bello Masari was at his worst state last
Thursday morning in his office when some female members of the House stormed his
office to register their protest over the embarrassing conduct of one of them,
Iquo Inyang, who threw caution to the wind and threw some slaps, accompanied by
blows and kicks, leaving a deep caught on the face of her Committee Chairman,
Emmanuel Bwacha.
Unknown to the women led by Sadautu Sani, who came to urge the House leadership
to punish Inyang severely for her ugly conduct, the Speaker with his colleagues
comprising other members of the House leadership has resolved to impose the
extreme form of punishment in line with House rules against the lady from Akwa
Ibom State, even if it means lording it over other members. Masari furiously
told the women that he was ready to go the whole hog to discipline Inyang who
is also the Deputy Chairman, Committee on Police Affairs, because she committed
‘sacrilege’ and besides it will serve as a deterrent to orders who
may cash in on the trend to resort to violence as the only means of settling
scores.
But
the good thing out of the rage was that Masari and his members have come home
to roost; they have suddenly realised that a new code of ethics for the
lawmakers may be the only panacea to whip recalcitrant lawmakers into the line.
So the reality has dawned on him to accept the new code of conduct prepared by
some international agencies to guide the conduct and sundry behaviours of
members in and out of the chambers. Before now, they have pretended as if the
code was meant to malign them and bring their ‘good’ image to
public odium. Ironically, their fears have now been helped by the same
‘good’ character they have been striving to help.
So
the Speaker, without the prompting of his colleagues, or waiting to be armed by
the resolution of the House plenary, directed the Chairman of the Rules and
Business, Ita Enang, to present to the House within one week the new code of
conduct, to check the rising wave of lawlessness among some members of the
legislature cutting across both chambers.
Inyang,
who was formally known as Iquo Minima until she changed the name early in the life
of this House, may have surreptitiously decided to take a queue from what had
happened penultimate week when the Deputy Chairman of the Senate Committee on
States and Local Government, Isa Mohammed, assaulted his Chairman, Senator
Iyabode Anisulowo, for allegedly spending the committee money all alone.
Inyang
may have miscalculated, as she chose a very inauspicious place in the presence
of some members of the House leadership to ‘scatter’ the face of
her chairman for simply not allowing her to perform the committee’s
oversight function in the South South oil producing states.
The
import of all these is not lost on the people, and the people are also not
surprised that what may have been the propelling force of the lawmakers’
morbid loyalty to things that are practically anti-people is to maintain and
service the conduit to keep amassing wealth to the detriment of the people
whose mandate they are keeping. What may however be the surprise was that what
is supposed to be an in-house fight now is coming to the open, meaning that the
once hope of the Nigerian people has so degenerated to a state of stupor,
looking like a jungle reminiscent of the Hobbessian state, characterised by the
principle of the survival of the fittest.
Slap
and get your cut of the pie, without shortfall. But the fear is that it may
come to a state where the people may decide to withdraw the mandate forcefully,
not resorting to the cumbersome and very conspiratorial process of recall put
in place by the heartless elite, to make the entire democratic process look
real.
Perhaps
that was the motivating force behind the assault on a senator from Kogi State,
who was slapped by his constituent who came visiting, to demand to know what he
is doing in Abuja without caring a hoot whether the constituents exist or not,
and to know whether they stuck out their necks on his behalf to merry and party
in Abuja, while the people live in uncertainty.
But
the young man was beaten to a pulp by security agents and the lawmakers aides.
But on the second thought, the Senator sensed that the action was rather
aggravating his precarious position at home, and in the company of the security
men, he apologised to the blood-drenched man, who there an then ‘passed a
personal resolution’ to rather die in the complex in the full glare of
the Senator who he claimed to have risked his life to rig into power in Kogi
State in 2003 than leave the complex alive.
Funny
enough, rather than reflect on the import of that action, the lawmaker relapsed
into a self-delusion, to wield a transient power that is the lot of elected
leaders and ask the National Assembly security to tighten security around the
complex and prevent any person that cannot properly identify himself from
entering the complex.
That
was the stunning reality last week within the National Assembly complex as the
air of insecurity pervaded members, such that to enter the complex for
constituents on visits and some others who ordinarily have no business being in
the place, is like applying for a visa to heaven. So code of conduct or no code
of conduct, beefing up of security, preventing visitors from trooping to the
complex to see those they elected, will still not address the problem on the
ground.
With
this show of shame the lawmakers felt that to bar visitors to the complex will
restore their acceptability and integrity in the estimation of the Nigerian
people, but all that sounds like an illusion. What has happened points to a
hard fact, suggesting that time for justice has come: steal in the night, pay
in the morning as the genuine owners of the mandate have begun to ask
questions, having been suddenly awakened from their slumber.
You
can block the Assembly gate permanently, but you cannot dodge the people,
unless if they lawmakers have decided to permanently imprison themselves behind
the ‘Assembly fortress’ and never to go home to continue the
profession of politics. So what will the new code of conduct do to the mind
that is already made up?
Shutting
the door against the public negates the very essence of representative
democracy for which the National Assembly is the main pivot. With the
constituency by constituency representation covering the entire 774 local
government areas, the primary function of the National Assembly is to bring
governance closer to the people through a regular lawmaker-constituent
interaction. This can be done at the constituency level where the constitution
has provided for its funding or at the National Assembly.
But
the reality suggests that these lawmakers have subtly jettisoned this on the
alter of money and selfish interest, so it is not surprising when members
resort to fisticuff to settle scores that have nothing to do with service
delivery, but purely on money and how juicy a committee assignment is.
Masari
may have hit the head of the bull, but will he tame it? That is the question
that only time will answer for him. One thing should be clear to him and that
is to realize that there are so many Iquo Minimas locking around, holding
important positions in the House in which he is the head. Again, the danger is
that the House may form a character based on such ugly influences.
The
Speaker should know that he was not the cause of the problem, it is perhaps the
system that threw up the new trend, and so he may not help it. As he is now
being forced to rather keep defending it, however, it goes to show that the
people cannot easily be assuaged by rhetorics, because they now know better.
Ostensibly, it is a blessing in disguise as the people have been afforded the
opportunity to learn fast on the implication of the wound inflicted on them by
the hollow ritualistic electoral process that brought characters that are
better consigned behind bars to represent the people.
One
day, and it may not be too far, the electoral system will reform itself and not
the phantom code of the parliament that will only regulate an unruly mind.
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