This blight threatened our democracy almost from when the generals matched back to the barracks and left the affairs of state to bloody civilians on May 29, 1999. We put it down to the necessary teething problems we must go through in learning the ropes of the nuances of democracy and the consolidation of the form of government we chose for ourselves.
Few things could be more disappointing, therefore, that 19 years later, we are forced to contend with the lawlessness of our law-makers at federal and state levels. These men and women put there by the people to whom power belongs, are either blissfully ignorant of the constitution and the powers conferred on them by the supreme law of the land or they are determined to subvert to suit their political purposes. It is a tragedy for law-makers to be ignorant of the law. It is a double tragedy for them to act as if they know what they are doing. It is a triple tragedy for them to continue to act and behave in a manner that does little credit to their sense of national service. They are getting on my nerves, I tell you.
The Daily Trust newspaper, in a lead front page story on November 23, reported that the national assembly would create 80 universities, polytechnics and colleges of education. Such institutions are not created; they are set up. But let us not quibble over semantics. The story was true in every material particular. The Daily Trust titles are today the leaders in investigative reporting in the country. You can always trust their stories. They have earned public trust.
But this is not about the newspapers. It is about the national assembly law-makers. The members of the upper house, called the senate, address themselves as distinguished senators. Those of the lower house, the House of Representatives, make do with being addressed as honourable members.
I find nothing distinguished or honourable in what they have ill-advised themselves to do. The business of setting up schools, including tertiary institutions, is squarely the constitutional or conventional responsibility of the executive branch of government. Tertiary institutions are set up through acts of parliament that provide the enabling law on which they stand as legitimate public institutions. Public institutions are not the business of the legislature. They have no right to dabble in educational matters in so far as they are not required by the executive branch to do so through a bill setting up such higher institutions.
If the legislature takes on the business of setting up higher institutions of learning, will they, on their own, appropriate funds for them? This is just nonsense. It stinks and exposes the national assembly to public ridicule. I do not for one moment think it is a path they should take. The challenge we face in education is not that of numbers. We have enough universities, polytechnics and colleges of education to meet our current level of economic development. The challenge is, among other things, to make them functional institutions capable of training our children and wards and prepare them to take on the onerous responsibilities as leaders of tomorrow. At the moment, those tertiary institutions are a drag on national development. The fault is not in them but in the political actors who place emphasis on quantity at the expense of quality.
Perhaps we are condemned to living with legislative recklessness fuelled by the disinclination of the distinguished or honourable members to act within the limits of the law and their constitutional powers. Last week the Akwa Ibom State house of assembly took us right back to the teething days of our democracy from 1999 to the end of Obasanjo’s administration in 2007 when the spate of mindless removal of state governors as well as the principal officers of the state legislatures from office, raised serious concerns about our commitment to democracy and the rules that guide the world’s beloved form of government.
There are 26 members in that house of assembly. Five of them, protected by the police, attempted to remove their speaker from office. Because two elephants in the state – the state governor Udom Emmanuel and Senator Godswill Akpabio – are struggling for political supremacy. Akpabio, in his own wisdom, defected from the PDP on whose platform he ruled the state for eight years, to APC, and wants to take the state with him to his new party.
Emmanuel, who refused to move with the man who anointed him for his current exalted position, has enough clout of his own to resist the senator. And the battle was joined. It does not take a political genius to see that the five members were acting the script written for them by the senator and his federal backers. The game plan seems infantile in its diabolical simplicity. The removal of the speaker would pave the way for the legislators in the Akpabio camp to use similar tactics to remove Emmanuel from office. I would imagine that the same five men would carry out this dirty job and ensure the supremacy of the man who sees himself as the godfather of Akwa Ibom politics over his estranged godson.
We saw that from 1999 to 2007 when the law-makers recklessly misused their powers to remove state governors from office. In Plateau State, six out of the 18 members considered themselves to be two-thirds of the house and removed the state governor, Joshua Dariye, from office. In Anambra State, five or so members of the house sat in a hotel in the neighbouring Delta State and removed governor Peter Obi from office. The fate befell Bisi Ladoja in Oyo State when the members of the state house of assembly met in Alhaji Adedibu’s house and removed the governor from office.
In every one of these cases, the law-makers acted the script written for them by the federal authorities through the EFCC. And in each case, those who removed the state governors from office did not muster the required two-thirds of their members to do so. Yet, this arrant constitutional breaches did not worry Obasanjo himself. His oath of office imposed on him the sacred duty to protect and defend the constitution against egregious abuse by anyone or groups of persons. He refused to do so. Had Mr Justice James Ogebe not courageously quashed the Ladoja impeachment on appeal, there was no knowing how many of the first set of state governors could have survived the dictates of a president with nary patience for the rule of law and the constitution. Thanks to that landmark judgement Ladoja, Dariye and Obi returned to office and served out their terms.
We thought we had put those bad days behind us. Not so fast, apparently. What happened in Uyo last week was a cruel reminder that evil deeds still stalk our democracy. It is condemnable. We must condemn it loud and clear. If politics is a dirty game, then the attempted removal of the speaker from office must be a telling evidence that our politicians have no desire to play it clean. We must end the treacherous resort to the mathematics of political power that places fewer numbers above higher numbers. It is politically expedient but it does not serve the ends of our democracy.
We must stand up against this reckless misuse of legislative power and say, not again. Our country must not be dragged back down the path of unconstitutionalism. The wisdom of the separation of powers in our form of government must not be violated with legislature and the executive branches of government encroaching on each other’s territory. The health of our democracy and the meaningful progress of our country make it incumbent on our legislators at both levels to abide by, and act within, the limits of the powers conferred on them by the constitution.
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