Date: 2017-01-31

Men of pen fraternity and others converged on the mini-hall of the Kwara State council of Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ) in Ilorin on Saturday to partake in the 17th edition of Media Parliament of the union, which featured the Deputy Speaker, House of Representatives, Hon Sulaimon 'Lasun Yussuff, as guest lecturer. AHMED 'LATEEF chronicles the session.

Since Nigeria returned to civil democratic governance in 1999 after protracted military dictatorship, there has been an endless debate on the role of legislative arm of government beyond its primary responsibility of law making as enshrined in the constitution.

The debate is usually oblivious of the fact that whenever military strikes and deposes the incumbent democratic government, the legislature is the first casualty. Immediately the military takes over the reign of government, the constitution, the only legal document guiding the system of governance is suspended while the law making bodies from the federal and state levels are relieved of their jobs.

With the sacking of the legislative arm and suspension of the nation's constitution in operation, application of decree is fully enforced and effective across the country. The use of decree expressly limits and pulls a brake to the fundamental human rights enjoyed by the citizenry. Of human rights violated with the enforcement of decree are right to freedom of expression, association and seek redress in a law court.

Although, the judicial arm widely acclaimed to be the bastion of hope of commoners, despite being in existence, also suffers some challenges in the hands of military hierarchy. This includes disobedience to court orders, invasion of court and attack on jurists in some instances.

The enforcement of decree, believed to be draconian and despotic in nature, does not exonerate the media. With the military in power, the agenda setting responsibility of the 'Fourth Estate of Realm" is indirectly withdrawn and any media outfit that dares to serve as conscience of the public, is usually brought to its knees.

These were the scenarios before the advent of democratic government, which has continued uninterrupted since 1999 when the administration of former Head of State, General Abdulsalami Abubakar, conducted an election that produced former President Olusegun Obasanjo as new man in the helms of affairs. His swearing-in was followed by the inauguration of the National Assembly and state Houses of Assembly respectively.

This alone typifies the importance of democracy being the government of the people with the trio of legislature, executive and judicial arms piloting the affairs of the country.

In spite of the importance attached to the legislature considered as first arm of government, it has come under barrage of criticisms from Nigerians who believe that the body is not just a money sucking entity but a torn in the flesh of the nation's collective patrimony.

This development has thus elicited unending debate among Nigerians, who still criticize the arm of government for appropriating too much of the scarce resources by allocating huge sums to its members at the expense of the downtrodden.

It also instigated question on the continued existence of the two chambers of the National Assembly. While some Nigerians hold the notion that there is nothing wrong with the bi-camera legislature as presently constituted in Nigeria, another section of pundits canvass uni-camera system of legislature in the bid to cut spending.

Another question on the viability of the existence of the legislative arm also emerged from the huge amount of money allocated to the constituency projects for each senatorial and constituency representatives.

It is held in some quarters that allocation of fund for constituency projects for lawmakers in the annual budget was a recipe to fritter away resources and duplication of responsibility of the executive, which is primarily tasked with implementation and execution of laws made by the legislature.

It is against this backdrop that the 2016 budget of N6.06trillion passed by the National Assembly became subject of debate following accusation and counter-accusation on the alleged padding of the fiscal document.

Former Chairman of the House Committee on Appropriation, Abdulmumin Jubrin (a member from Kano), who is currently on suspension for accusing some Principal Officers of the House of Representatives of being behind the budget padding scandal, stood his ground that his allegation was genuine.

The debacle caused a lot of uproars in the national polity and prompted ceaseless calls for independent investigation while those found to have enmeshed themselves in the scam should be made to face full weight of the law. Jubrin, who opened the can of worms was first consumed having been suspended for long period of time, thereby denying him participation in legislative activities.

In what appears like a subtle response to the upbraid of the legislative arm of the Federal Government by some members of the public as a body that allocates large chunk of the nation's resources to itself with disregard for the current recession, the Deputy Speaker of the House of Representatives, Hon Sulaimon Lasun Yussuff, was on hand to offer explanation to the legislative responsibility and certain advantages conferred on it by the constitution.

It was all at the 17th edition of the Media Parliament of Kwara State Council of Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ) held at the mini-hall of the secretariat of the union along Offa Road, GRA, Ilorin.

Delivering a paper on the topic "Challenges of Lawmaking and the Delivery of Dividends of Democracy", the Deputy Speaker absolved the legislature of involvement in any act of corruption allegedly perpetrated during the consideration of the 2016 budget. He said a lot of Nigerians are ill-informed about politics and governance, which he noted, requires intellectualism to navigate.

Yussuff, who also bemoaned recurring executive and legislative spat in a democratic setting, expressed displeasure that the media was too hasty in passing the buck without being armed with relevant facts on the workings of the legislature.

"While the executive makes proposals on projects, programmes and expenditure for every year, the legislature finally approves figures that are spent. In the process, the legislature often interface with the executive to have certain projects and programmes form part of budget.

"This is necessary as I have said earlier because of the closeness of the legislators to the constituents expectedly must have emerged from that environment, it is critical that certain pressing areas requiring government attention are suggested and included in the estimates.

"Unfortunately, the poor understanding of the fine details of legislative practice anchored on the express provision of the constitution erroneously informed the so called "budget padding debacle" which was a distraction to the polity. For instance, the case of 50 year old Ojutu Bridge in my constituency that has great potentials in turning around the lives of my constituents.

"We are building on existing relationship with the executive in order to continue with our legislative functions in the budgetary process without necessarily encroaching on the functions of the executive arm.

"The argument by the National Assembly lawmakers as the true representatives of the people who are close to the grassroots and know their needs; and therefore are better placed to determine the projects that are relevant to their constituencies remains as relevant as ever.

"What we do in this legislature is opening new grounds in fostering trust and understanding between the two critical arms of government. The lawmakers insisted that their inputs were necessary in the articulation of development projects for their individual constituencies. But this is where power ends. However, because we are the ones that allocate the resources, we can thus exercise some reasonable influence in ensuring that there is value for money allocated.

"At the end of the day, the ultimate responsibility for execution of developmental projects or amenity or service of any type rests squarely on the executive which has the enabling capacity to do so. Part of the challenges we face is the unwillingness on the part of the Executive in some instances to take the legislature into confidence. Even after we had influenced the siting of projects in our respective constituencies, such projects had often suffered from poor implementation or non-implementation due to the uncooperative attitude of government officials who hide under the mantra of funds insufficiency.

"However, democracy cannot be micro-managed and what is needed most is the necessary synergies between the executive and the legislature for a more proactive partnership that will further strengthen understanding and collaboration for the good of the Nigerian people.

"We do not expect a friction free relationship between the two arms because that may not be in the interest of the Nigerian people. However, collaboration and understanding becomes necessary and is the "magic" that is needed to increase the level of legislature induced development projects. Our relationship with the current executive arm is cordial but as a system we are working round the clock to make it even better for the sake of good governance and our people.

"One major challenge the legislature has faced in Nigeria over time is distorted public perception of the lawmakers in the media. Through the actions of some sections of the media, National Assembly members are falsely projected as a selfish bunch that feeds fat on our common patrimony and cannot provide democracy dividends to the masses they represent. Nothing can be further from the truth!

"The legislature and indeed the National Assembly is a very patriotic arm of government and has remained true in its commitment to the wishes and aspiration of the Nigerian people. This is reflected in the various interventions we have continued to make through the instrumentality of representation and appropriation to improve the lives of our constituents, sometime not appreciated as dividends of democracy.

"We are the most criticized arm of government because we are the ones that are nearer to the people. Our electorate find little or no difficulty in assessing us at any time. We listen to their complaints and misgivings about the system and we try to collate and arrange these grievances as the feedback in the process. The softer side will include bringing the challenges and matters of interest of our constituents to the parliament for intervention.

"But I wish to reassure Nigerians that as the elected representatives of the people, we will continue to serve the best interests of our people. We will not be deterred by some of the misguided criticisms we continue to face in the discharge of our duty.

"I want to use this forum to appeal to our friends in the media to be factual and more objective in the coverage of the activities of the Nigerian Legislature, particularly the National Assembly. No useful national purpose will ever be served if our media continue to project the National Assembly in bad light, more so, the legislature is the "youngest" of the three arms of government because from 1960 until 1999, anytime the military intervened in the polity of the nation, it is always the legislature that suffered most. It is suspended only to be revived when a civil regime is put in place. Both the executive and judicial arms have been intact throughout the period of independence".

In his welcome remark, the Chairman, Kwara State council of NUJ, Mallam Abiodun Abdulkareem, said the media has a crucial role to play in holding the legislature accountable to the people, pointing out that it remains the first of government.

He noted that the forum was conceived as a feedback mechanism to provide an avenue for people to be more enlightened about the goings in the governance of their country.

Also speaking, the Speaker of State House of Assembly, Dr Ali Ahmad, eulogized the guest lecturer for delivering what he called practical academic paper.

Dr Ahmad, who chaired the ceremony, said there was no justification to accuse the legislative arm of budget padding as long as it performs its function, saying the legislature remains the centre-piece of democracy.