How House plans to tackle Nigeria’s problems

By Jide Ajani, Deputy Editor &  Ben Agande

There is a growing consensus that if Speaker Aminu Tambuwal does not change course or tactics, then his leadership of the House of Representatives would no doubt engender what perhaps may be the highest level of success in the activities of that chamber of Nigeria’s National Assembly.
Pointers to this emerged right from the very early stages even before his emergence as Mr. Speaker. In the very early, heady days of the attempt to ensure that the seemingly shambolic zoning arrangement that the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, sought to enforce (shambolic within the context of the dismal performance of the party in the South-West geo-political zone), some members of the House had organised a meeting to streamline their position. On a jocular note, a few prospective aspirants for the speaker’s position from across other zones had positioned themselves on the supposed high table. Tambuwal, the stories goes, opted to sit in the midst of other members of the floor. One of the members pointed him out and said Tambuwal’s humility was what made him sit in the midst of the  members, that that is the way to go and that is the type of speaker the House would want. Little did it really matter at that time that Tambuwal would become the consensus choice. He has since kept faith.
Sunday Vanguard had made spirited efforts to get an interview with him but his busy schedule kept pouring cold water on the drive.
Even when he paid a visit to Lagos to apprise media executives of the agenda of the 7th Session of the House, Sunday Vanguard could still not get the interview. But Sunday Vanguard was able to obtain the presentation Speaker Tambuwal made.
Also, last Thursday, the speech he presented to his colleagues in the House while announcing chairmen and members of the House’s Standing Committees, is here presented.
What Sunday Vanguard has done is to take a peep into the workings of the mind of Mr. Speaker, his vision for the House and how he plans to go about it. Almost always, the announcement of committee chairmen and members had been one very knotty and naughty issue past speakers had had to contend with.But when Tambuwal made his announcement, one thing stood out: That the relentless pursuit of a consensual yet progressive approach to the selection process calmed nerves across the political divide. For instance, some first time members in the House were appointed chairmen.As a first attempt at presenting Speaker Tambuwal to members of the reading public, what Sunday Vanguard is presenting is a synthesised version of the two presentations in an interview form.

On the Committees that held fort before last week’s committees’ inauguration

We had set up four committees.

The Business and Rules Committee: This committee (was) intended to consider matters of procedure and conduct of Business in the House; to recommend additions or amendments to rules with a view to achieving greater efficiency in the delivery of our legislative mandate.

The Selection Committee: The members of this Committee (were) saddled with the responsibility of sifting through members’ CVs for placement in committees to ensure that every member is put into the right committee so as to fully maximize their potentials and to ensure that they deliver the highest value in terms of effective representation for their constituents. There will be no square pegs in round holes.

The Code of Ethics Committee: This committee, as the name suggests, (was) set up to x-ray the conduct of members and come up with the code expected of members of parliament and ensure adherence to the code , and the Media Committee:

The Media Committee was set up to examine ways for the House to effectively engage the press with a view to having a mutually beneficial relationship in the interest of our democracy and nation.

Nigeria’s problems
At that point, we decided that we were determined to find legislative solutions to the nation’s  problems, and that was just the beginning.

The problems of effective healthcare delivery system; affordable housing and efficient transportation systems; security of life and property, rewarding retirement schemes; revamping a comatose educational system; constitutional amendment; fiscal federalism; devolution of power; electoral reforms with focus on electoral offences; gender equity and justice; oversight; law reform and justice sector reform; infrastructure –power, roads etc. will receive more than enough attention to deliver democratic benefits to our people.

Speaker Tambuwal

Standing together on a shared purpose
You will recall that the kernel of our legislative agenda for the Seventh House which was unveiled on June 28, 2011 focused on specific prescriptions.

To refresh our minds, it traversed constitutional amendment, revival and diversification of the economy, employment generation, strengthening national security, curbing corruption, tackling electricity crisis and general infrastructural decay, improving health system and the education system. While not exhausting all the turfs that generate concern in our national journey, it broadly captures the core arenas that inevitably encompass the unlisted areas.

If we take the blueprint under reference as our guiding vision, then we needed to define the next most important dimension to executing the imperatives of our legislative mandate.

The objective of our standing committees
The Standing Committees represent the main vehicle for actualising our constitutional brief. This is a time-honoured Parliamentary tradition.

Considering the role of Standing Committees in the business of the legislature, I can hardly overstate its centrality to carrying out our basic brief. I am happy to announce that this tasking responsibility has been concluded. You will recall that seven general principles undergird our agenda. These include the initiation of a new order that will promote transparency and guide institutional integrity through well-organised public expenditure management; restructuring the management and functions of legislative committees and implementing the e-parliament agenda that will bring the National Assembly at par with international best practices and ensure public access to Parliamentary information and processes.

Others are the review of legislative budget for openness, effectiveness and accountability as well as the review of the Constitution and institutionalization of mechanisms that will facilitate more effective engagement with various stakeholders. I, therefore, urge all members  to close ranks so that we can achieve the lofty objectives we have, on our own, set for ourselves.

The Standing Committees
I need not re-educate members on a turf they are central participants in or a subject already close to their hearts; or unduly delay unveiling the details and shape of our constituted Standing Committees. But I feel some preamble is in order. Legislative or Parliamentary Committees have evolved as vibrant and central institutions of modern democracies all over the world and Nigeria is no exception. This fact obviously contradicts the position of the renowned American inventor, Charles Kettering, who held that, “If you want to kill any idea in the world, get a committee working on it.”

Because the depth and breadth of work in a legislature cannot be conducted in plenary sessions, the detailed lawmaking process is carried out by Standing Committees. To do effective justice to our core oversight and representation functions, our committees represent crucial drivers of this legislative mandate.

Significant role of the committees
Because our Committees are micro-reflections of the larger House, its operations and activities must be held to standards of efficiency, transparency and accountability. Incidentally, these are the same standards already defined to guide the Seventh Assembly of the House. With this in mind, the committee system in the House will be strengthened to deliver on efficiency and effective performance of legislative deliverables.

To my mind, valid political decision-making and the effective legislative business pivot on good, unbiased information and rigorous political analysis. In a milieu of partisanship such as ours, theoretically, it will be very difficult to make progress because of different political affiliations.

But, then, theory and practice are horses of different colours. Clearly, it’s very enlightening to note the role played by bipartisanship in the emergence of the Principal Officers of the Seventh House. This clearly suggests that regressive conventionality has pretty little place in this House at this particular time of our national journey.

Equality of all committees
As we begin on this new journey, I must state that all committees are equal in the essence of their constitution and being.

The core objective is service. It will, therefore, be clearly unhelpful for lawmakers to see some as superior to others or that one is more ‘juicy’ than another. At this particular moment in our history, a solid closing of ranks would be far more preferable than a contentious in-house crisis over perceptions of inferiority or superiority of parliamentary committee chairmanship or membership.

I am aware that everybody has a preference and it is normal, but what the leadership of this House and the Selection Committee to which each state nominated a representative have done in the past few weeks, has been to look at the areas of core competences of members and deploy such talents effectively. And, we have tried to be fair to everyone. For that reason, I will advise we simply junk Lord Milverton’s quaint counsel on the issue of committees and their chairmanship.

According to Lord Milverton (Arthur Frederick Richards), a British colonial administrator who incidentally served as governor of Nigeria from 1943 to 1948, “the ideal committee is one with me as chairman, and the other members in bed with flu.”

This is not a disposition I would encourage in our members. At this period in our history, we have the choice either to show maturity and progress or submit to unpatriotic impulses and stagnate. With little question, to recast the Nigerian dream we must close ranks.

I strongly believe that there is enormous strength and a remarkable resilience in our country and our people ably represented by the distinguished men and women in this hallowed chambers. But clearly, these are difficult times in the life of our nation. We therefore must continue with our national journey on the understanding of a shared purpose.