By Sam Amadi
The National Assembly in Abuja is where statesmen gather to make laws for the good governance of Nigeria. True or false? Well, it depends on what you are looking. If you focus on how the members of that institution describe themselves you may think they truly make laws for the good of the nation. But if you focus on what they actually do and say, then the answer is no.

The problem with the National Assembly is that whereas the institution is designed in the constitution as an arena of deliberation and reasoned legislative and policy interventions the institution is populated by persons who are intellectually challenged in the virtues and graces of deliberation and public reason. Don’t get me wrong.

There are few good men and women in this infamous institution. But even these good men and women (a few of them very educated) are better disposed to use their talent in public leadership in other institutions but the National Assembly. They are basically ill-suited for the rational and deliberative lifestyle required to be a legislator.

The problem with the National Assembly is that even as it lacks the basic technique and talent to make transformative laws and generate quality policies to get Nigeria running its members lack the humility and public spiritedness to solicit   help from those who have the insights and knowledge to improve its work. The United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA) reported in 2005 and 2009 that African parliaments are notoriously ill-equipped, poorly staffed and lack research capacity to be efficient and effective.

But in Nigeria this poor state is worsened where proud legislators with little talent refuse to be guided by those who know.
Some months ago, during the ministerial screening I wrote a deferential letter to the Senate President pleading with him to request (then) Acting President Goodluck Jonathan to attach portfolios to the ministerial nominees so that the Senate can have value-adding screening as required by the constitution. I didn’t receive a response.

But this is not a problem. Nigerian public institutions are notorious for not feeling accountable to the people. But the disaster was how the Deputy Senate President, when reminded by the Presenter of AIT’s Focus Nigeria about my argument about the proper way to screen ministers, shot back impudently, by saying “who is Sam Amadi?”. He did not bother about my argument.

As long as I am not a ‘Distinguished Senator’ my views don’t count. It is not about me. It is always about the right of the people to contribute to governance and the responsibility of those entrusted with public power to pay heed to the voice of citizens, especially those who know.

Knowledge is not the prerogative of the legislator. Yes, it is the right of the legislators to make law (and Nigerian legislators will throw that in your face anytime). But this right is not valuable if it is not deployed with knowledge gained from external sources. The irascibility to negate every intervention of those who knows makes the National Assembly an institution groping in darkness.

There is no better example of this ‘groping in darkness’ than the present confusion where the National Assembly misdirects itself on the process for amending the Constitution. Just check out how the Deputy Senate President reacted to the controversy about whether the President needs to assent to the ratified provisions of the amendment before they become part of the Constitution by asking those who express different views to go to court.

Okay, ultimately, the answer to the controversy, if it persists, is the court. But the proper response will be to engage the views of eminent Nigerians, including the incomparable Professor Nwabueze who argues that the President’s assent is required for the amendments to become law. It is not for the legislator to shut down her mind and ask the interrogators to go to hell. I have argued    with distinguished Senators and Honourable members on the process for amending the constitution.

Long before the oracular Nwabueze opined that the President must assent to the ratified amendment before it becomes part of the constitution, I have argued that a good reading of the

Sections 9 and 58 of the Constitution shows clearly that an Act of Parliament to amend the Constitution requires presidential assent to become effective. I contrasted Section 9 with Article 5 of the US Constitution. Whereas the US Constitution makes it clearly in its Article 5 that ratification by the States

validates the proposed amendment, Nigerian Constitution does not so provides.
Again, whereas what is required to activate amendment in the US is a proposal, in Nigeria it is an Act of Parliament. The constitutional history of the US and Nigeria differs. While in the US it is the states that ceded their sovereignty to the center, in Nigeria, it is the center that created the states. So, it stands to reason why ratification by the States should suffice in the case of the US and in Nigeria, a bill by the federal legislature is required.

The point is that the sort of rigor required for this kind of analysis does not come cheap. There are some in the two chambers who ordinarily possess capacity to engage in such rigor, but it appears the listlessness of the many have blunted their sharp edges. I believe that we need a better legislature to avoid this kind of errors. We need a better legislature to provide efficient and effective legislative framework for good governance.

Everywhere we look there are issues crying for attention and there are no quality inputs from the legislature. It is symptomatic of this malaise that the most important laws since 1999 came from the foundries of the executives. There are few private member bills of any quality.

In this light, I don’t know how to react to the statement attributed to

President Goodluck Jonathan that the present federal legislators should be given a wild card to come back in 2011. Did he actually say so? I doubt! It would mean he is not paying sufficient attention to the work of the legislature. Members of the National Assembly have dramatically failed such that just a few should come close to the chambers after June 6 2011. A few deserve another opportunity: the Chukwumerijes, Momoras, Ozamgbachis, etc. But most should bid farewell to the ‘hallowed’ chambers and reengage their old lives as contractors and hustlers.

The problem with the National Assembly is that men and women with neither aptitude for public reason nor enthusiasm for the public good have taken over the place. They need to be served quit notice in 2011.