No immunity for leaders of the legislature

Following the ongoing trial of Senate President Bukola Saraki by the Code of Conduct Tribunal over alleged false declaration of assets, the National Assembly has again embarked upon a controversial bid to amend the constitution and extend the immunity enjoyed by some elected officials to the leadership of the National Assembly. The minority leader of the House of Representatives, Leo Ogor, dropped the hint in an interview with a national newspaper.

According to Ogor, “The legislature would soon sponsor a constitutional amendment to confer immunity on the Senate president and his deputy, the Speaker of the House of Representatives and his deputy, and the Chief Justice of Nigeria (CJN).”

The logic of the legislature in flying this kite is quite simple. In their thinking, if the head of the executive arm of government and his deputy enjoy immunity, the heads of the other arms should equally enjoy immunity. Obviously, and as confirmed by Ogor, the legislators are worried by what they describe as the constant external influence and manipulations in the choice of presiding officers of the National Assembly. No doubt most of them view, and perhaps rightly so, the trial of the Senate president as attempt by external forces to determine the leadership of the National Assembly. Their long-term solution to the constant harassment and intimidation of the leadership of the legislature, therefore, would be to grant them immunity from arrest and prosecution.

True, the manner of the emergence of the leadership of the National Assembly and the furore it generated within the party and the polity generally point to the fact that forces outside the party were determined to impose the leadership of the legislature. This is expressly unconstitutional and runs counter to the spirit of separation of powers, personnel and functions of the arms of government. Clearly, there is a need for better appreciation of the role of the legislature in a democracy and the need to allow the legislature and its caucuses determine the leadership.

However, the solution to this problem does not lie in extending immunity to the leadership of the legislature. This would end up creating more problems in the polity than solutions. The original idea of immunity granted to chief executives and their deputies by the framers of the 1999 Constitution was to free them from constant and sometimes undue litigations so that they could focus on the onerous task of governance. However, as we have seen over the last 16 years of our democratic experiment, immunity was taken more as a licence and cover to perpetrate crime, engage in unbridled corruption and looting of the public treasury without fear or let. So great was the impunity perpetrated by elected chief executives that not long ago, there was a national outcry for the removal of the immunity clause in our constitution to allow elected officials face the consequences of their nefarious activities even in office.

There is the argument that elected officials do not enjoy immunity forever and that they could be made to answer for their crimes after leaving office. This sounds logical and should actually be the case, but as experience has shown, elected officials who perpetrate crimes during their tenures ensure that they compromise evidences of their crimes or amass huge resources which they could deploy to delay, frustrate and ultimately determine the outcome of their trials when, if at all, they are charged to court for their alleged crimes. Our experience with democratic governance over the last 16 years has shown that countries with weak institutions of restraints like ours have no need providing immunity for their elected leaders. Power, if not effectively checked, corrupts and in our clime where leaders could easily manipulate, coax or ignore institutional controls and checks and balances, the provision of immunity to leaders would only further provide leaders with more powers to do as they wish.

The National Assembly, in this case, is also seeking immunity for its leaders for motives that are not so altruistic. If the Senate president is innocent of the charges levelled against him, he has all the means at his disposal to prove his innocence. He need not resort to the use of immunity.

We urge the legislators to show maturity and love of country in this matter. We already have a problem with immunity as it were. What Nigerians expect them to do is use their offices to effectively check the activities of those who currently enjoy immunity from prosecution to ensure that they do not abuse their powers and offices and in cases where they do, they are promptly called to account and impeached so they could face trial.

Ultimately, we call on the legislators to rather initiate the process for the entire removal of the immunity clause from our constitution until such a time when we have built strong institutions that could effectively check the exercise of power by our leaders.