Beyond competence, loyalty and patronage are criteria for the distribution of committees in the Senate and House of Representatives. GBADE OGUNWALE, ONYEDI OJIABOR, VICTOR OLUWASEGUN and DELE ANOFI examine the politics behind the choice of chairmen and members.
IT is easier for the camel to pass through the needle’s eye than for members of the National Assembly to get the chairmanship of ‘choice committees’ on merit. The politics of choosing chairmen of standing committees has always created camps in the Senate and House of Representatives. In most cases, members are not appointed to chair committees where they possess a demonstrable forte.
More often than not in the Red Chamber, the password is loyalty to the Senate President, who chairs the Selection Committee. Senators jostling for the headship of the proverbial ‘juicy committees’ know it as a hidden rule that loyalty to the Senate President is a blind one.
As it was in the Fourth Senate (1990-2003), so has it been up to the Eighth Senate (2015-2019). The lobbying usually starts before the inauguration of the Senate, with series of underground meetings and horse trading among key players and carpet baggers within the ranks of senators-elect.
Clinching the position of Senate President is in itself an expensive project. The plum job is always reserved for the ‘generous’ among the senators-elect. An aspiring President of the Senate uses financial muscle and promises of headship of ‘juicy committees’ to garner support from colleagues.
The job is made easier for the ambitious where his party enjoys a sizable majority membership, in which case he can count on the support of fellow party members to achieve his goal. This was the case in the Fifth, Sixth and Seventh Senate sessions when the Senate was dominated by the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) . However, it was a different kettle of fish in the Eighth Senate where the All Progressives Congress (APC) has 60 members to PDP’s 49.
In the present Senate, the process that threw up Dr. Bukola Saraki as the Senate President was the most contentious and the snafu triggered by the contest is yet to abate. And like others before him, Saraki has been playing the shuffling and reshuffling game with the headship of the standing committees for loyalty.
The power to pick committee chairmen is perhaps the strong weapon in the hands a Senate President to wield influence. It is a double-edged sword to reward loyalty and to punish perceived political enemies.
Last week before the Senate adjourned for a seven-week holiday, Saraki used the weapon as he tinkered with the composition of the committees. The development believed to have created a sense of gratification among some senators, left some others huffy.
The Appropriation, Senate Services, Petroleum, Finance, Education, Power, Health, FCT, Aviation, Works, Agriculture and a few others, are ranked as ‘Grade A’ committees. Senators who get the chairmanship of any of these ‘A’ rated committees must have ‘laboured’ for it. In few instances, some members go to the extent of selling their souls to the Senate President to chair the committees. The scramble has nothing to do with the commitment to the common good. Chairing any of the committees often offers the latitude to operate in the Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDA) over which the committees conduct oversight functions. The chairmen act as point men for the Senate leadership in terms of ‘patronage’ and other ‘perks’ from the various MDAs. It is either the MDAs are corralled into sponsoring programmes for a particular committee or for a group of senators, even when funds for such programmes had already been appropriated.
Also, any discovery of financial malfeasance in the MDAs provides another avenue for the committee chairmen and members to come in. Such MDAs are summoned to investigative hearings to answer questions on missing funds, which are usually in billions, or projects captured in the budget but not implemented.
The committee chairmen spits fire and flares up in the open hearing before series of closed door meetings are subsequently held between the committees and the heads of the affected MDAs. Then the noise gradually subsides and that would be end of the story. The committees also undertake oversight functions from time to time by visiting the MDAs for on the-spot-assessment of their performances in relation to their budgetary allocations.
Over the years, stories coming out of these oversight functions are a deluge of personal demands being made on the MDAs. Job recruitments by these MDAs are usually seen by the committees as opportunities to push their relatives and family members forward for patronage.
There are always a number of slots reserved for candidates of the committee chairmen and members, on merit and otherwise. Given the fringe benefits, no senator wants to lose his position as committee chairman.
That is why last week’s rejig in committee headship by Saraki is still generating ripples among the chairmen that lost out.
In what analysts viewed as a ‘desperate’ move to pacify some aggrieved members, Saraki had on Thursday announced a major shake-up in some of the standing committees. Some of the beneficiaries of the new committee appointments include those who petitioned the police over the alleged forgery of the Senate Standing Rule 2011.
Thirteen committee chairmen were moved in what observers described as a deft political move to assuage frayed nerves. Spokesman of the Senate Unity Forum, Kabiru Marafa was one of the major beneficiaries of the committee re-arrangement. Marafa has been the most vocal of the critics opposed to Saraki’s emergence as Senate President. The Zamfara Central senator was taken from the Committee on National Identity Card/National Population to head the ‘juicy’ Committee on Petroleum Resources (Downstream). The headship of that committee was taken away from Senator Uche Ekwunife, whose election (Anambra Central) was nullified by the Court of Appeal Court.
Saraki had bypassed Senator Barau Jibrin (Kano North), who had been overseeing the Downstream Committee after Ekwunife’s election was voided.
Another of Saraki’s opponent, Senator Suleiman Hukunyi, took over from Marafa in the National Identity/National Population. Senator Oluremi Tinubu (Lagos Central) was redeployed from Women Affairs Committee to chair the Committee on the Environment.
The Lagos senator said she has been overseeing the committee in an acting capacity before becoming the substantive last Thursday.
Others are: Ho pe Uzodinma, who was moved from the Committee on Aviation to the Committee on Customs; Adamu Aliero (from Customs to Aviation); Barau Jibril was moved to chair the Senate Committee on Tertiary Institutions; Joshua Dariye (from Solid Mineral Resources to Public Procurement); Babajide Omoworare (from Rules and Business to the newly created Committee on Legislative Compliance); Adokwe Suleiman replaces Enyinnaya Abaribe as the Information & National Orientation Committee Chairman; Baba Kaka Garbai takes over from Omoworare at Rules and Business and Tijani Kaura as Chairman, Committee on Federal Character.
Senator Enyinnaya Abaribe was named Chairman, Senate Committee on Power to replace Senator James Manager, who was redeployed to head the Committee on Solid Minerals. The Delta State-born politician had chaired the committee on the Niger Delta Development Commission for two consecutive Senate sessions. Ahmed Ogembe (Kogi Central, PDP) was named Vice Chairman, Committee on Marine Transport and Ovie Omo Agege (Delta Central, Labour Party) was named Vice Chairman, Committee on Land Transport.
Since 1999, the chairmanship of the ‘A’ list committees have always been given to senators elected on the platform of the ruling PDP which enjoyed comfortable majority in the Senate from 1999-2011. However, regardless of a majority membership of the APC in the Eighth Senate, most of the ‘juicy’ committees went to members of the rival PDP.
Not a few believe that Saraki had to reward the PDP senators, who helped him become the Senate President against the wish of his APC party.
How far the recent changes in the leadership of the senate committees will be determined on the extent Saraki can go in pacifying the aggrieved senators within the APC.
Though the leadership in the House of Representatives tries to discourage the ‘juicy committee’ nomenclature, some of the 96 Standing Committees in the House of Representatives are ‘A’ rated.
From the Sixth House under Dimeji Bankole, through Waziri Tambuwal in the Seventh to this Eighth dispensation headed by Yakubu Dogara, the politics of the selection has always been based on loyalty and interest. Beneficiaries are determined on loyalty and the long term interest of the leadership of the House.
Ideally, the committees in the parliament as the engine room which oils the process of legislation and oversight and the effectiveness of such committees should be hinged on the concept of a round peg in a round hole, but this is rarely applied.
In the wake of the election of the House Speaker on June 9, last year, tempers rose due to the composition of committees with the APC accusing the Speaker of sharing the committees almost equally among members of the ruling APC and the opposition PPD.
But sequel to the election, the appeal of the Dogara camp was mainly to the PDP lawmakers because of the perceived favoritism exhibited towards his main rival, Femi Gbajabiamila by the party.
The block votes of the PDP lawmakers gave him victory in the contest, though with promises of commensurate rewards.
The bargain by the PDP caucus was rife, particularly about what committees they wanted or are willing to trade their block votes for, despite the Standing Orders of the House stating that “members of Committees shall be nominated and appointed by Committee on Selection, essentially, the Speaker is the head of the selection committee.”
The selection processes often bring tremendous pressure on Speaker with members taking trips abroad on the same flight to lobby for choice positions.
Some House members were dissatisfied with the dichotomy in the committee headships after the heated campaigns that characterised the speakership election.
The belief of many was that the ruling APP should have at least three quarters of the committee appointments with all the ‘Grade A’ committees firmly under their grip. That, however, did not happen. Contrary to expectations APC got 47 Committee chair positions and 46 went to the PDP. The selection process and its outcome generated bitter acrimony between the two main parties.
The Committee on Appropriations was given to Jibrin Abdulmumin, who was the Speaker’s staunch supporter before the duo fell apart. Besides nominating Dogara on June 9, Jibrin fought the Speaker’s rival Femi Gbajabiamila to a standstill.
The committees on House Services, Finance and Communications were given to Dogara’s avowed loyalists in the APC but the PDP loyalists also got ‘A’ list committees including Gas Resources, Aviation, Power, Health Services, Works, Petroleum Resources, NDDC and Foreign Relations.
The allocation of committees to avowed loyalists or as a trade-off or repayment for support predated the Eighth House. In the Seventh House where Tambuwal went against the grains of the PDP’s choice of Speaker in the person of Mulikat Akande- Adeola, juicy committee allocations were given as reward for ‘good behaviour’.
The difficulties then was between the choice of ensuring that committees would be effective by choosing the right people or giving out positions for patronage.
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