The dictatorial proclivity of the 8th Assembly

The National Assembly comprising the two legislative chambers; Senate and the House of Representatives traditionally and constitutionally empowered to make laws and perform oversight functions is gradually morphing into a dictatorial Frankenstein where members are gaged on rhetorical and omnibus House Rules.

While no one should begrudge the two chambers for enforcing rules to guide parliamentary ethics in legislative business, the bias and tendentious application of such rules to members as the nation has witnessed lately is not only reprehensible but also expose the underbelly of the heads of the two chambers as empress with primordial missions to accomplish outside the extant legislative templates.

This skewed legislative praxis is more pronounced in the senate where the chamber has been partitioned into either pro-Saraki or pro-PMB.

Any infraction from pro-Saraki seems to be approached with perfume whilst any from pro-PMB is awarded the most severe sanctions.

The danger in this unfortunate praxis is that the fear of being unjustly sanctioned would prevent robust debate predicated on alternative views and opinions that should underpin legislative decisions.

The victim of this dictatorial tendency is not only the suspended senator but the entire constituency he represents.

Senator Omo-Agege for instance is suspended for 90 legislative days despite tendering apologies while Sen Shehu Sani did the most unthinkable to the senate’s guided ethics by revealing the allowances of members on national television, overreaching the spokesman of the chambers.

Shehu Sanni has not been sectioned because of his membership of the senate oligarchy.

The public cannot forget in a hurry Sen. Dino Melaye’s clownish show of unrestrained passion in what he debut as “Ajekun Iya.”

Could any member of U.S. Congress dance on CNN in celebration of inanity without being recalled? Is the show of shame not an embarrassment to the senate?

It is gratifying that Sen. Omo Agege has gone to court to seek redress but the outcome of such judicial intervention remains a matter of conjectures because of the doctrine of separation of powers.

Bukola com Ajisola, bukymany@yahoo.