Still a long way to go for Reps

Today, June 9, the 8th House of Representatives is marking its two years of inauguration. Our correspondent examines the journey so far.

The 8th House began on a very shaky and turbulent note owing to the leadership crisis that enmeshed the Green Chamber following the emergence of Yakubu Dogara as Speaker in a keenly contested election on June 9, 2015.

Dogara, who represents Bogoro/ Dass/Tafawa Balewa Federal Constituency of Bauchi State was not the choice candidate of his All Progressives Congress (APC), but he defeated the party’s candidate, Femi Gbajabiamila, with eight votes, scoring 182, to the latter’s 174 votes.

Gbajabiamila was thereafter nominated by APC as House Leader, but Dogara and his men initially footdragged only to yield to pressure on July 28, about two months after their inauguration. Soon after that, the House went on to carry out its activities peacefully, with Dogara fully in charge.

Later that year, in October, Dogara announced the leadership of the 96 standing committees of the House in which he rewarded most of his loyalists, especially those in the opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) with committees considered to be “juicy.”

Although the development created some ripples among the lawmakers, the House was able to navigate through that and went on to perform its legislative assignment.

Within its first three months, the House came up with a legislative agenda, which it intended to achieve in four years. Major items on the agenda included needs assessment; focus on internal operations/processes; e-parliament, e-voting, digitisation, archiving; focus on National Assembly communications and review of the national budgetary process.

Others were focus on national economy and development; focus on priority legislation; review of the laws of the federation; focus on anticorruption; constitution reform process; harmonisation of the national identity management system; reduction of cost of governance, as well as improved legislative-executive relations.

While the House was able to achieve some items on the legislative agenda, it appears a number of them have been proving difficult to attain. For instance, while the lawmakers have worked on many bills within the period, they are yet to stimulate the economy via legislation.

In the area of improved legislativeexecutive relations, the House has been doing its best to maintain good relationship with the executive as can be seen from the good understanding the lawmakers have with the presidency. Dogara and other leaders of the House are frequently seen in the Presidential Villa meeting with the president or the vice president on national issues.

Also, the House has given priority to legislation and review of obsolete laws and as at today, over 159 bills have been passed within the last two years, while the constitution amendment process is still on.

On December 10, 2015, the House passed a total of 130 bills for first reading in less than 30 minutes, the first time the House did so since the return of democracy in 1999. Another 100 bills were read for the first time on June 8, 2016.

The House also held sectoral debates with key ministers such as those of finance as well as trade and investment, among others with a view to knowing the direction of the country’s economy. But there is no report on that yet.

In the area of anti-corruption, it can be argued that the House is still lagging behind because the two bills President Muhammadu Buhari presented to the lawmakers on anti-corruption since last year have not been debated.

The two bills are titled: ‘Mutual Assistance in Criminal Matters Bill and the ‘Money Laundering (Prevention and Prohibition) Bill.’

Although the House recently made its budget public jointly with the Senate, it is glaring that a lot needs to be done in the area of reducing the cost of governance.

For example, despite that resolve, the lawmakers opted for exotic cars, Peugeot 508 at the cost of N3.6 billion. The amount has since been reviewed upward due to the rise in exchange rate.

In fact, the lawmakers budgeted N35 million amidst protest by some members-on the special session for the celebration of their second year anniversary alone, which is to be held inside the House chamber. A large chunk of the money would go to media advertisements and live coverage.

While the lawmakers were able to conclude work on the National Assembly Budget Office (NABRO), same cannot be said of the e-parliament and e-voting, which the House said would soon kick-off. Again, there are a lot of silent agitations going on among the lawmakers on the so-called internal communications as some often complain that they do not know details of their pay and other entitlements.

All said, in the last two years, a total of 1055 bills were introduced on the floor of the House out of which 159 were passed, while over 500 are still undergoing different processes. 33 of the bills were either withdrawn or rejected by the House, according to the House Deputy Whip, Pally Iriase.

The most important bills passed by the House were the 2015 supplementary budget, last December, the 2016 and 2017 budgets.

Another important bill passed by the House was that on the establishment of the North East Development Commission (NEDC), sponsored by Speaker Dogara.

One major bill considered by the House was the one that proposed 30 years as minimum age requirement for the office of president, governor and senate and 25 years for members of the House.

The bill, sponsored by Rep Tony Nwulu, says Sections 65, 106, 131 and 177 of the 1999 Constitution (as amended) are to be further amended to pave way to reduce the age bracket.

Some of the bills the House worked on in the last two years include: A Bill for an Act to Amend the Price Control Act, 2004, a Bill for an Act to Facilitate Electronic Transactions in Nigeria and for Other Related Matters, a Bill for an Act to Establish the Chartered Institute of Public Management of Nigeria, a Bill for an Act to Establish the Nigerians in Diaspora Commission, a Bill for an Act to Establish the Police Procurement Fund and a Bill for an Act to Amend the Oaths Act, Cap. 01 Laws of the Federation of Nigeria, 2004.

Others were Corporate Manslaughter Bill, 2015; Medical and Dental Practitioners Amendment Bill, 2015; Peoples Bank of Nigeria Act (repeal) Bill, 2015; National Eye Centre Amendment Bill, 2015; Inland Fisheries Act Amendment Bill, 2015; Public Partnership Regulatory Commission Bill, 2015 and Casino Taxation Amendment Bill, 2015.

There were also bills such as the Fisheries Society of Nigeria Bill, 2016; Traffic Warden Service Bill, 2016; FCT College of Nursing and Midwifery Bill, 2016; Chartered Institute of Facilities Management of Nigeria Bill, 2016; Chartered Institute of Auctioneers of Nigeria Bill, 2016; Nigeria Sports Bill, 2016 and Good Citizens Bill, 2016.

In the area of motions, some of them had to do with the constituents of the individual lawmakers, while few others dealt with serious national issues, dwelling mostly on investigations.

One motion that attracted the attention of observers during the period was the one sponsored by Speaker Dogara on the rehabilitation, reconstruction and resettlement of the displayed persons in the North East.

Dogara went on to sponsor bills such as Hire Purchase Bill; Subsidiary Legislation Bill; Federal Competition Bill; Data Protection Bill; Public Disclosure Bill; the Northeast Development Commission Bill; Federal Competition and Consumer Protection Commission Bill and Budget Process Bill.

In what appeared to be a North versus South East affair, majority of the lawmakers rejected a bill to establish the South East Development Commission.

A major controversy that characterised the House in the last two years was that of the 2016 budget where the suspended former chairman of the Appropriation Committee, Rep Abdulmumin Jibrin (APC, Kano), made several allegations of corruption against Dogara; his deputy, Yussuf Suleiman Lasun; Chief Whip, Alhassan Ado Doguwa and Minority Leader, Leo Ogor.

Jibrin later expanded his allegations to include all the 360 members of the House, including himself. He ended up paying dearly for it as he was suspended for 181 legislative days by the House on September 28, last year.

Since Jibrin’s suspension, the House appears to be peaceful with Dogara consolidating on his firm grip on every member of the House. But are there no dissenting voices? Of course there are.

A number of the lawmakers were of the view that Jibrin’s allegations were swept under the carpet because Dogara was involved. The Jibrin saga, no doubt, tainted further the already battered image of the legislators.

Some of the lawmakers, including a few considered to be Dogara’s allies, are not happy with the style of leadership of the speaker as it is said that he does not allow them to have access to him most of the time in his office, but a lawmaker close to the speaker said that was not true.

This development, it was gathered, led to a situation where lawmakers line up to see the speaker during plenary while he is presiding over proceedings of the House.

In the last two years, the lawmakers have set for themselves 11.am as their sitting time, but most of the time, they began sitting at least by 11:20.am, while in some other cases, they started from 11:30.am.

Now that the lawmakers have two years to go, with the last year being an election year, it remains to be seen what they will achieve before their tenure expires.