By  Gabriel Enogholase
BENIN—PRESIDENT of the West Africa Bar Association, WABA, Mr. Femi Falana, has called on Nigerians to take advantage of the on-going debate on the jumbo pay for members of the National Assembly to critically examine the total cost of governance in the country.

He insisted that a situation where about 80 percent of the total budget was allocated to the service of unproductive bureaucracy should stop.

Mr. Falana, who made the call while delivering a paper, entitled “The Limit of Legislative Powers in Nigeria”, at the 2010 Luncheon Party/Award Ceremony of the University of Ibadan Alumni Association in Benin, accused late President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua and President Goodluck Jonathan of violating the constitution by assenting to illegal Appropriation Bills which their predecessor in office, former President Olusegun Obasanjo, never assented to.

Accordding to him, “under Section 81 of the constitution, the president shall cause to be prepared and laid before the National Assembly estimates of the revenues and expenditure of the federation for the following financial year.

“But in the course of passing the Appropriation Bill, which embodies the estimates, the National Assembly has been increasing the annual budget.

“By usurping or sharing powers with the president to prepare the budget and  laying it before itself, the National Assembly has continued to violate the provision of section 81 of the constitution. Unlike President Olusegun Obasanjo who never assented to illegal Appropriation Bills, his successors have been endorsing them, in spite of serious objections.”

He argued that the claim by members of the National Assembly that the overhead cost of the National Assembly was not 25 per cent but 3 per cent was unjust and unacceptable.

He insisted that t was immoral for 429 members of the national legislature to allocate to themselves 3 percent of the national budget in a country of 140 million where 70 percent of the populace lives on less than N150 per day.

Commenting on the just passed bill by the National Assembly purporting to confer the membership of the National Executive Committee of political parties on federal legislators, Mr. Falana said that it was illegal and a violation of ECOWAS Protocol on Democracy and Good Governance.

“It is a clear breach of the freedom of association of Nigerians who are members of registered political parties. Furthermore, as a frontline member of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), Nigeria has ratified its Protocol on Democracy and Good Governance and as such cannot make laws that violate the provisions of the Treaty”

“Accordingly, the amendments of the Electoral Law (except areas where there is national consensus) are illegal by virtue of Article 2 of the protocol which has prohibited the alteration of Electoral laws six months before elections in any member state of ECOWAS”, he said