Ali Baba And The Forty Thieves – Buhari vs The National Assembly.

Ali Baba And The Forty Thieves – Buhari vs The National Assembly.

Before reading this piece, it is essential to announce that I am not holding forth for any of the parties and I am as neutral as the word itself. I am only responsible for what I have written and not the reader’s translation, assumption and understanding.

For any Nigerian with the interest of their immediate community and at alert with National politics, you will agree with me that the country is on a stand still with one political drama or the other weekly, the only funny thing is the fact that all the fracas, accusations and counter accusations are from within the same party in power!

For any government to be a success - many factors are involved and all these factors are equally important with roles to play, check and balances is required to curtail abuse of power and avoid a section of government or individual from being excessively powerful. All these factors are like a tripod; they depend on each other to stand. 

The three arms of government and their functions. Even though each branch of government is holding similar amount of authority, they are independent from the others.

The Legislative branch of government: It is their role to make our laws, approve nominations and appointments to federal positions, regulate the trade and government spendings etc. In the system of government we practice, this arm of government includes The Senate and The House of Representatives, both usually refers to as the National Assembly. The members are elected from all the 36 states of the Federation including the FCT – Therefore, they are all drafted from the people!

The Executive branch of government: This arm government role is straight forward enough and usually the President is the head of this arm, their role is to administer the laws made by the legislative arm of the government, this arm of government is accountable to the National Assembly. Abuse of power is common amongst the members of the executive arm of government so in a democracy, they must be put in check always to avoid abuse of power. In most cases when people say the government, they are referring to this arm of government. 

The Judicial Arm of Government: This is the arm that interprets the laws, they are only concerned with the administration of justice and serve as the sole guarding of the country constitution. In some cases, this arm of government can also make laws when the existing laws are confusing or in conflict with other laws. This arm also function as the advisory body to other arms of government.

The other arm of government that’s important yet not documented is THE PEOPLE: No arm of government can function without the people, the laws are made mainly for the people and administered on the people, to be carried out by the people, to protect the people, to put the people in order. Wherever you find no functional government, you will find anarchy and chaos.

Now that each function of these arms of government has been discussed and highlighted. Now, lets relate this back to the present chaos in today’s government where each arm seems to have lost focus or not aware of their function, where rule of law and respect for the law of the land has been bastardised and disrespected, where lawmakers are now lawbreakers, where those who are meant to interpret the laws are now the ones with the zero understanding of the laws, where the executives are now dictators with no regard for the laws of the land, where legislators are now bending laws to suit themselves and laws are not for sale, where the lawmakers are now having separate laws for the common man and another for the elites. 

Nigeria is unfortunate to have a legislative arm of government that is not only power hungry but with members that are determined to be billionaires overnight for being in trusted positions to “serve their people”. These set of people are seeing their position as an opportunity to enrich themselves. 

Majority of the members of the National Assembly are “Big Boys”, men that have been in power like forever, ex-governors, ex-ministers, ex-national party chairmen, ex-military top brass, billionaires and power hungry people that despite being a lawmaker, all they desire is to be in charge of the Nation. Quarter of the House of Assembly members desire to be in the President position and they would do anything humanly possible to reach that position.

Only in Nigeria are lawmakers requesting for bribes to pass a law or amending budgets to suit themselves and their cronies, only in Nigeria is padding a budget a legal thing to do, only in Nigeria must the executives be prepared to bribe legislators either individually or collectively to pass a budget, the same budget that is in the interest of the people they are claiming to represent.

While Nigerians are crying on the massive allowances being paid to these gluttons holding the nation to ransom, if only they are aware of the other things on-going in the National Assembly, milking the executives is where the real money is, ordinary approving list of appointees will require palm rubbing, laws that are meant to make life easier for the people would be made to go through all sorts of unnecessary blockages because the executives are not willing to play ball.

Many of these “Legislooters” have been in the National Assembly since 1999 and of course they are not willing to vacate their seats until death comes knocking, imagine all these clowns parading as representatives of the people collecting billions of naira in the name of “community projects allowance” and yet the community remains as it was before they joined the “assembly of looters”. Their projects are always the similar across the country; collect 1billion as “community project allowance” and buy cutlasses and hoes for the people! 

Distributing rice and indomie noodles for the people! Presenting shoes shine kits for the youths as an empowerment! What sort of leader would think about what to do as a project for his people and arrives at distributing frying pan!! 

You would expect members of the House of Assembly to be critical thinkers and to pursue the interest of their people at the assembly but none has come up with a policy to impact their people’s lives positively – surprisingly, they do have supporters amongst the people and these supporters are mostly “educated”!

All the issues the states are having are caused by these states national assembly members, they want to be in Abuja and still control theirs states, of course the state governors won’t allow that hence one fight or the other at nearly all the states. Imagine a scenario where Mr A was a governor for 8years,left to the senate (This is becoming some sort of retired plan for ex-governors), for him to be “safe”at home, he installed his deputy as the governor and off to Abuja to “contribute” to national development.

This Mr.A plan is to be in Abuja and still ruling his state by proxy via his ex-deputy, of course, the new governor understand the game and knows when to stop being a “yes man” to his former boss, now trouble begins, new governor wants to appoint his own men into power and be in control of the state budget without someone pulling strings from Abuja – he refuse to be a puppet! And for that, the state would remain ungovernable; both sides have supporters willing to kill to protect their paymasters! 

Now that Mr.A has been dethroned at home, the only option available to him to remain relevant is to turn the state to a war zone, he doesn’t care how many people would die as a result of this power tussle as long as he regain the control of the state. There is never an end to this as the incumbent governor is also aiming to come to the senate after his tenure as “traditional” for ex-governors and Mr.A is not tired of “serving” his people just yet either! In all these, the people are suffering from provision of good governance.

Most of the leaders in the Senate require some sort of “respect” from their state governors because when they were governors, the present governor was probably a “nobody” or just some civil servant or a local government chairman. They see their states as their personal property and they are the natural landlords!

The other leg creating troubles in all the states is still related to the National Assembly, only this time the Senators that have not been Governors before, they were members of the House of Representatives and later joined the Senate but after “serving” their people and becoming billionaires overnight, they now have the financial muscle to come back to the state and wrestle power from their state Governor – One aim, to complete the cycle of rotating offices, having been a member of the HOR and the Senate, what is left? Of course, the state Governor. 

Whenever they demand for a bribe to pass a law or approve a request from the executives and this get rebuffed, then they start all the usual “Committee” for this and that with the intention to paint the government of the day as inefficient, no direction and lack of answer to the economy challenges, it’s all a business tactic to arm-twist the executives to play ball. 

A case of give me this in order to have that, these people despite living large at the expense of the country are still greedy and unsatisfied, to have a slight idea how much they do get paid legally or by Ghana must go, have a look at the lifestyle of Senator Dino Melaye who has no other job than being a legislator! His supporters who are mostly poor would come to his defence with their usual “Do you know how much they get paid? So he should afford to live that way”, unfortunately that’s how bad the people have been brainwashed to embrace and accept immorality, fraud and corruption.

If you are looking for people that destroyed Nigeria, either at the state level or the Federal – look no further, they are all at the National Assembly, they have been in one position or the other and they have no other job than being in government. The total worth of your legislators combined would settle our National debt and still credit left; they are that confortable and yet desire more from the national purse.

We are all aware that there is a cabal holding the government to ransom and they have been termed as the “Hyenas and jackals” by the first lady. Unfortunately, we Nigerians have been eyeing the wrong direction, the cabal are at the National Assembly and they will do anything to remain in power at whatever expense.

You will find armed robbers, 419 men, religion fanatics, insurgent sponsors and looters at the National Assembly making laws for hardworking Nigerians and in the process protecting their comrades.

As long as we have these calibre of men and women in the National Assembly then we should forget moving forward and developing as a Nation. To them it’s all about the money and change of leadership and zero f..k given with the people’s interest or concern.

One Million Buhari can’t fix this country under the watch of these greedy, insensitive and power hungry Hyenas and Jackals in the National Assembly.