Big egos, small minds

In a recent interview with a Nigerian newsmagazine, Pentecostal cleric Tunde Bakare, asked to give his assessment of the National Assembly, retorted: "What do they assemble there?" We, like many other Nigerians, wish we knew the answer to that.

What is certain is that, left to the Assembly - to be precise, the Senate - the all-important 2010 Federal budget is not worthy enough for ‘assemblage' anytime soon. The two elephants that make up the assembly, the Senate, and the House of Representatives, are at war. Their fight is neither about the constitution, nor is it about matters of constitutional importance. If it were, we would be
happy, that for once the constitution is worthy enough to attract their attention. It would also not be such a bad idea if the drama were over the finer points of the budget's content - matters of allocations and observed discrepancies. But no, the distinguished men and women of the Assembly have not even set their eyes on the budget, not to talk of discussing its merits and demerits.

The all-important concern for them is the venue of the budget presentation. It is the practice that the President appears before a joint session of the National Assembly to present the Federal budget also known as the Appropriation Bill. Since the start of the 4th Republic, that joint session has traditionally taken place in the House of Representatives chamber. The constitution didn't prescribe
this venue, but common sense would indicate that the bigger chamber (there are three times as many Representatives as there are Senators, and this of course is reflected in the sizes of the respective chambers) would be the ideal one for a joint session.

Now our Honourable Senators have woken up from the stupor that saw them pass only 15 of the close to 300 bills that came their way in the first two years of their sojourn in the legislative chambers. And what have they woken up to do? To realise that it is demeaning for them to proceed to the lower chamber of the Assembly for the budget presentation exercise. After all, are they not the "Upper
House"? They have therefore issued a statement announcing that the Senate President has decided to exercise his powers as Chairperson of the entire National Assembly, and that this year's presentation would take place in the Senate chamber.

In response the House of Representatives, through its spokesperson, Eseme Eyiboh said: "How can 360 members move into a place designed for 109 members? It is not logical." He then went on to downplay
the venue tussle . "Budget presentation is a national assignment that deserves respect from us as a parliament; it deserves sacrifice so that the process of governance will go on unhindered." He is
mostly right. Yes, the budget presentation is a "national assignment". And yes, it "deserves respect". But it is a bit too much to say it "deserves sacrifice". It is disturbing to imagine that the National Assembly would ever think of any of their responsibilities in "sacrificial" terms, as though they were doing Nigeria a favour.

With the amount of money that they guzzle in allowances, loans, contract bazaars and wasted manhours arising from generous recesses, the least they could do in return is sit down and work. Just before he left for Saudi Arabia to attend to his health, President Yar'Adua meanwhile said it was against the principle of separation of powers for him to interfere in the affairs of the Assembly. Whatever
happens, there is one thing we must not forget to do: at the end of the year, we must add the ‘cost' of this patently silly, irresponsible display of ego on the part of the Senators, to the long list of
mind boggling costs they already incur at our expense.