National Assembly weakening our democracy

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National Assembly weakening our democracy

Since the return of democracy in 1999, sleaze has always been seen as the second shadow of our National Assembly. During the tenure of former President Olusegun Obasanjo, Senators were regularly induced to change their leadership, which resulted in the emergence of four Senate Presidents between 1999 and 2003.

Large sums of money were moved around in “Ghana-must-go” bags to influence NASS members to do the biddings of the Executive branch, one of which was Obasanjo’s aborted third term bid. The corruption perception of the Federal Legislature ebbed considerably from the tenure of the late President Umaru Yar’Adua.

Politics of trenchant opposition and the need to protect the leaderships of the Senate and House of Representatives helped reduce the unabashed movement of cash to buy their loyalty. The lawmakers became more discreet in their dealings.

Since Bola Tinubu was sworn in as President in May 2023, the National Assembly has returned to its default mode. Tinubu, who was once a very influential Senator during the military regime of General Ibrahim Babangida, is a strong believer of a president having full control of the Legislature.

Right from the general elections and the emergence of the current National Assembly led by Senate President Godswill Akpabio and Speaker Tajudeen Abbas of the House of Representatives, Tinubu called the shots to position his loyalists in the leadership. He has also been very “generous” to them. The National Assembly and Supreme Court were among the first to benefit from Tinubu’s hundreds of billions of welfare packages to make them comfortable.

It is not surprising that Tinubu’s critics, particularly former President Obasanjo and his erstwhile Vice President, Atiku Abubakar, are among those who have directly accused the lawmakers of being compromised to support the president’s declaration of state of emergency and sack of democratic structures in Rivers State.

While many lawmakers have denied the allegation, the Chairman of the House of Representatives Committee on Federal Capital Territory, FCT, Mukhtar Betara, who was caught red-handed sharing $5,000, claimed it was a “Sallah gift”. This immediately brought back the episode where Senate President Akpabio, on camera, told senators that money (which he later called “prayers”) had been sent to their accounts to enable them enjoy the recess they were embarking on.

Massive institutional corruption has put our democracy on the path of failure. The NASS has apparently given up its function of checks and balances, and public confidence in it has been eroded. The NASS has largely abdicated its function of representation. This is unacceptable!

Our social organs of conscience must rise to bring back our National Assembly. If we do not recover our wayward representatives, we will wake up one day and find ourselves in a dictatorship worse than military rule!

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