The Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria 1999 provided for a House of Assembly in each state of the federation to make laws for the good governance of the states. At the federal level however, the same constitution created two legislative chambers, namely: the Senate and the House of Representatives.

One expects federal laws to be more ingenious because each proposed law more simply described as a bill is expected to have been well considered and agreed upon by each of the two bodies before it is put up as a prospective law. In other words, until both bodies reach a consensus on a bill, it cannot be moved further up in the lawmaking process. Concurrence of both bodies on any proposed law is therefore virtually indispensable.

Last week, the House of Representatives decided to step down two bills presented to it by the Senate for review. The action was reportedly taken after the House had observed that whereas it usually makes the review of bills passed by the Senate to the House a priority, bills passed to the Senate by the House are not similarly handled. As a result, hundreds of bills initiated by the House are allegedly held-up in the Senate.  Last week’s decision to step down two bills initiated by the Senate was therefore an attempt to adopt a “tit for tat” approach towards the Senate. The motion for the action was unanimously endorsed by the House after Speaker Tajudeen Abbas acknowledged that the Senate was yet to act on about 146 bills from the House, including over 10 he personally sponsored and which had been pending for more than six months.

It is not quite easy to understand why the Senate may have developed a convention to treat bills initiated by the House with the observed disdain. Could it be laziness or pride on the part of Senators? A quick analysis of developments over time may easily justify both traits. To start with, the House is made up of more vibrant and generally younger persons while the Senate is populated by more elderly persons who had previously retired from other professions and occupations. Indeed, the Nigerian Senate has become known as the retiring home of former state governors. Some of them actually left office as governors about 20 years ago but in line with the sit-tight mentality of the average African politician, they won’t voluntarily quit the scene.

The other perspective that the attitude of the Senators can be traced to a feeling of superiority is also probable. The viewpoint that the House is the lower chamber while the Senate President serves as the overall leader of the National Assembly seems to strengthen the point. But is the House actually lower? A few legislators interviewed by this writer while compiling this article disagree. They say the titles of Upper and Lower Chambers have been misconstrued because they originated in medieval Europe from structural rather than hierarchical categorization. According to them, the titles do not mean the same thing in every clime. There is also the argument that in a democracy, which is premised on majority rule, a chamber in Nigeria consisting of 109 members should not be considered superior to another with 360 members who have the same mandate of lawmaking.

Perhaps it is wiser for Nigeria to adopt the use of ‘Red and Green’ chambers. This is because superiority is a non-issue when it is realized that the bills passed by a supposed superior chamber cannot, as earlier stated, become law until the other chamber concurs. What appears significant however is that contrary to public perception, lawmakers are not always united. In Nigeria they are united on personal gains such as their huge and controversial remuneration. There is also a large measure of ‘esprit de corps’ in which members are united to defend one another. For example, any time a legislator is accused of wrong doing or corrupt practices, the two chambers would hurriedly set up kangaroo committees that would exonerate the accused even before the details of the accusation are yet to be fully disclosed.

Many Nigerians would no doubt wish that the current face-off would last a bit to reduce unified defence of scandals such as budget padding or when some legislators spiritedly ensure the microphone is switched off when some public hearings are becoming indicting. History suggests that such an expectation is a tall order which will not stand the test of time. Of course, there is already a truce and those praying for more disagreements between both chambers are not likely to get what they pray for. Events have shown for instance that the threat to suspend further expedited review of bills originated by Senators is already yielding fruits as the Senate has within hours reportedly passed 6 held-up bills earlier passed by the House. In fact, some members of the House are confident that their other 140 bills earlier with-held for no reasons would receive favourable attention shortly.

It is simplistic to play down on the confidence that more of the said bills would soon be passed especially if the ‘bow and go’ strategy that is used to give clearance to some nominated ministers and other special groups, is adopted. It is not unreasonable to believe that all the remaining bills can even be passed in one day considering the precedent set about a decade ago. What happened then was that some three (3) days before the expiration of its tenure, the 7th Senate met and passed 46 bills in ten (10) minutes while describing itself as an exceedingly successful legislative chamber. The bills had earlier been passed by the House before they were sent to the Senate for concurrence. Due to what the then chairman, Senate Committee on Rules and Business, Senator Ita Enang described as ‘limited time’ the Senate passed the bills without following the required processes and procedures.

It is however not enough to assume that the with-held bills have sufficient probative value to condemn those who are reluctant to support them. Many of the bills are establishment bills that many Nigerians really depreciate. Most legislators are always anxiously working to sponsor bills for the establishment of one institution or another in their villages without considering the adverse effects such bills may have on society. The bills largely seek to duplicate structures that the economy cannot sustain. But because their kith and kin may applaud them for bringing home some goodies, no effort is made to probe the real value of the goal being pursued. As a result, many of the bills in question are irrational.

By continuing to pursue such bills our legislators fail to remember that Nigeria cannot be looking for how to reduce the huge cost of governance while its lawmakers are establishing more bodies that further complicate our situation. A major reason attributable to the failure of successive governments to implement the laudable recommendations of the Oronsaye panel is the continuing indiscriminate establishment of several entities by the legislators. Unfortunately, Senators who seem to always play down on what appears to them to be irrelevant bills are not better patriots concerning the establishment of unsustainable projects. At a point, some Senators embarked on the establishment of law schools in their villages which had no infrastructure to support such a project.

Any legislative body in Nigeria today that is desirous of helping the nation to streamline her development process ought to begin its assistance by discontinuing the trend of replicating structures and institutions when existing public institutions that are being replicated lack the resources to remain thriving.  Another patriotic duty that our legislators may consider is the silent debate on whether Nigeria is actually buoyant enough to have two federal legislative chambers that have the same function of lawmaking. Whereas the two bodies can help to produce high quality bills, the passing of 46 bills in 10mins by the 7th Assembly and last week’s passing of 6 bills because of a threat by one chamber against the other do not show that Nigeria’s choice of a bi-camera legislature was well made.

Many years back, the learned Olu Onagoruwa a former Attorney General of the Federation had argued that “the most sanguine feature of any lawmaking process is the quality of the lawmaker.” Our current legislators who employ ‘tit for tat tactics’ to get bills of parochial interests passed cannot take us too far. It is suggested that they learn from the teachings of the famous Albert Einstein who opined that “only a life lived for others is a life worthwhile.” Governance is about service; and not about grabbing huge remuneration while satisfying sectional rather than national interests.