By Sam Nd Anayanwu
08030611815
Since the inception of the 4th republic, I am still beaming the searchlight on our Legislative Arm of Government. It is not uncommon to see their seats empty at sittings and this goes to acquaint the public that they must be engaged in other duties when they are absent at the House.
In view of this scenario, I concur with former Governor Bola Tinbu’s proposition that the senate be scrapped which will reduce the cost of governance and the recurrent expenditure.
Unicameral legislation as we have at the state and council levels will conserve tax used in servicing the bi-cameral legislature and such resources can be used for other meaningful projects.
In other to bring sanity to our Legislative Arm of Government, only those who attend the sitting should be paid for the allowances as per the hour put in by the legislator. Those present should not equally be bench warmers and chorus singers of voice votes of ayes and nays, there should be active participation because every voice does matter. The more pathetic situation is the bought over of the legislative at the state level by the governors and this legislators now act under the whims and caprices of the state executive. In most states, they are virtually for ceremonial occasions because they do not really understand the need to make laws that will benefit the electorates and constituency the represent. They have made enormous wealth by neglecting their oversight functions and only go to the house just for the financial benefit that will accrue to them. There is the need to overhaul the legislative arm of our government with a view to making it effective and need not to be rubber stamped of any governor. Its primary duty is to serve as a check on the over bearing of the executive and not to agree with every decision of the executive without deliberation and putting into consideration its impact on the people they represent.
The judiciary on its own part have been corrupted by the executive in our democratic system and this has given rise to their bias nature in pronouncing judgment in cases of electoral tribunal and other court cases between the state government and the lower arm of government in some states due to excessive use of power. The fact that electoral results are either annulled or upheld at tribunals compounds the whole issue. The judicial officers have shown their human side and have proven that they are not immune o corruption as historical experience has shown that they are part of the Nigerian Society with corrupt professionals.
Ethical issues has been overlooked by judges who have joined the rubber stamped legislatures to accept watering gratifications and this tags a question mark on their integrity.
The officers of the judiciary must eschew corruption that has eroded its credibility and those in charge of our judicial system should weed those who are not willing to abide by the ethics of professionalism.
The executive is not an exception in the irregularity of governance. Because of the desire .for every state executive to be totally in charge without advises and counter opinions, they have always gone beyond there excesses and bounds and this has cause so much frenzy between the state executives and the so called stake holders and apex leaders in the state over who owns the city and has caused a lot of chaos in the polity.
The pathetic story of such scenario is the implementation of policies without the view of the people governed and this goes to say that their views does not matter and this does not in any way promote democratic growth. The melancholy of our nationhood is corruption and our democratic practice since 1999 has not abate it and this still remains the main issue in Nigerian politics.
Corruption has kept on graduating to higher rate and this is the major reason why our youths are unemployed. This unemployment that have eaten deep into the fabrics of our youths explains the restiveness in our country today and there is no doubt that it fuels the kidnapping, armed rubbery, prostitution among ladies and other social ills rocking our entire nation. There is no end in sight to corruption, it will remain with us because contracts are on daily basis being over inflated.
Our democracy is yet to translate into giving Nigerians the expected democracy dividends neither has it lead to the good life and prosperity that Nigerians yearn for. There is need for serious behavioral or attitudinal modification on the part of political office holders. For this to be realized, politics should be seen as a call to serve and not a business venture for profiteering.
The death of our Local Government Administration is one ugly trend of our democracy, there is no guarantee of the independence of the third tier of government in Nigeria in most states of the country. The state government have all swallowed the local councils and rendered it non functional and the affairs and resources of these councils are controlled by the state executives without hitch hence there is less development at the rural areas. This is out rightly against the provision of the 1999 constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria that provides for the existence of Local Governments. Our local areas are undeveloped as a result of absence of governance at this level and this is the reason for rural-urban population drift and rural poverty.
Government at all level should subsist for the development of our rural areas. The allocation should be utilized by elected and not appointed leaders of the council who were hand picked by the state executive.
Our votes should count and we should all strive to elevate democratic ethos that would translate to good governance in Nigerians.
