Need for an independent legislature

As President Muhammadu Buhari inaugurates the 8th National Assembly today, and as the senators and the House of Representatives members elect their principal officers, we reiterate that the legislators must be allowed to choose their leaders without any external influence.

The need for an independent legislature cannot be over-emphasised. It bears mentioning that legislative oversight over the executive encourages checks and balances; it enthrones fiscal discipline, good governance, accountability and transparency in public offices. It promotes accountability in government through enforcing efficiency and cost-effectiveness in the course of generating people-centred policies and programmes necessary to address the numerous challenges confronting governments at all levels.

But the very moment the executive shows interest or manipulates the formation of leadership of the federal legislature, whether by itself or through the party machinery, in our view, a rubber-stamp National Assembly emerges. It is therefore our belief that if we are going to have a clean 8th National Assembly, an independent legislature that will perform its own constitutional responsibility, the two chambers must be allowed to determine the leadership from the inside. Forces from outside of the NASS influencing decisions of leadership could be very detrimental to the country.

This is why we are in shock over the mock in-house election of principal officers of the House of Representatives superintended by the National Working Committee of the All Progressives Congress (APC), at the weekend, which is said to have anointed Femi Gbajabiamila, the member representing Surulere Federal Constituency of Lagos, and Tehir Monguno as the party’s sole candidates for speakership and deputy speakership, respectively.

It may be argued that a ruling party should have a say in the determination of principal officers in the parliament in order to ensure that the party does not begin to have an opposition in the legislature that is under its (the party’s) control. We are also aware that anybody who contested and won election on a party’s platform must abide by the decisions of that party which is supreme. But we insist that the party must not choose or impose a candidate on the legislature as the action of the APC suggests.

We recall how Aminu Tambuwal emerged speaker of the House of Representatives in the outgoing 7th Assembly contrary to his party’s (then the People’s Democratic Party) wish. That singular move stamped the Tambuwal-led House as an independent entity. Recently, Tambuwal called for the autonomy of the legislature to enable it function optimally. Citing instance with his experience at the National Assembly since 2011, he said, “Here at the national level, we have secured our independence; that is why both the Senate and the House of Representatives function with or without the cooperation of the executive arm of government.”

We also recall the reassuring words of President Buhari, shortly before his inauguration, that he was not in any way trying to influence the choice of leadership in the National Assembly. “I am prepared to work with any leaders that the House or Senate selects. It doesn’t matter who the person is or where he or she is from.”

The then president-elect also reminded Nigerians that the much-expected change had truly come and it would not be “business as usual”. “Nigeria has indeed entered a new dispensation. My administration does not intend to repeat the same mistakes made by previous governments. There is due process for the selection of leaders of the National Assembly and I will not interfere in that process,” he said.

We therefore urge the president and his party to walk the talk and allow the incoming lawmakers to choose their leaders without undue interference even as we call on the lawmakers themselves to resolve to serve the Nigerian people that gave them the mandate. In our view, if we are going to have the promised “change”, it must begin from the election of principal officers of the National Assembly. Anything to the contrary may amount to a return to square-one.