For the better part of the last two decades, I had cause to severally disagree or oppose the viewpoints, statements or actions of Adams Oshiomhole either as President of the Nigerian Labour Congress NLC, or Governor of Edo State or National Chairman of the All Progressives Congress APC. In order not to belabour the issues of the past, I will only just say we fell apart many times and quite often used the media to put our different positions in the public domain. It is therefore quite likely that many people who knew about our sour relationship would be surprised to read this piece which eulogises Oshiomhole’s commendable contributions to debates in the Senate, especially in the last couple of weeks.
The point to be made and quickly too is that the motivation for this article is the need for a critic to endeavour at all times, to appreciate every good message no matter who the messenger is. In other words, a sound media professional ought to separate a messenger from his message so as to avoid the tendency to be fault-finding. That was precisely what influenced this writer while watching the contributions of Senators to a motion on the unfortunate deaths caused by the attack of insurgents on the town of Gworza in Bornu state three weeks ago. During the debate, many Senators followed the usual pattern of saying the same things over and over ago. While some were calling for more attention such as working on the road networks or prioritizing the use of technology such as drones as well as the need for the military to be more proactive, it was Oshiomhole that hit the nail on its forehead.
The military are better trained than the rest of us on subjects such as warfare and counter-terrorism. The role of the Senate therefore is not to teach the military what to do about those subjects but to appropriate sufficient funding for the recommended military operations. The other fundamental mandate of the military is to undertake oversight to find out how the huge sums appropriated by the legislature are expended. It is for this reason that the legislature has a committee to supervise every public function. But an honest review of events in Nigeria since democracy was restored in 1999 would show that oversight by the legislature is convoluted by corruption. The committees do nothing about investigating how funds were utilized, they only hold courts where they keep threatening to issue warrants of arrest to officials who decline to attend legislative sessions to which they are invited.
No one is ever arrested as the threats are simply a strategy to intimidate public officials into bribing committee members especially their leaders. On the few occasions that legislators tried to do real oversight by carrying supervision to the point of assignment, they ended up briefing the media on how satisfied they were with the organisations visited in addition to their firm resolve to ensure more funds are made available to the concerned agencies in the next budget. But do the huge sums budgeted for the military annually get to them in full? Are monies received by the military used for the exact purposes for which they were appropriated? Having affirmed that the funds are used majorly for non-essentials and ego projects, Oshiomhole called for a more effective oversight of military expenditures.
It is not only Oshiomhole that knows that oversight functions are poorly undertaken in Nigeria; many citizens are also aware. From 2003 -2008, when I served as Chief Executive of the Nigerian Television Authority NTA, I received zero allocation for capital projects because I refused to meet financial demands of legislators of the relevant committees of the National Assembly. This was what first occurred to me when I heard that Oshiomhole’s fellow legislators rejected his call for a thorough investigation of what the military does with its funding. The position of Senators was not surprising because many of them behave as if they are not answerable to anyone. In other climes, citizens would have demanded to know those who voted against such a proactive call.
While commending Oshiomhole for his patriotic call, it is also noted that the Senate President Godswill Akpabio was so disgusted with the reaction of the Senators that he decided to repeat the question which was more loudly answered in the negative. Big pity, Akpabio could do nothing thereafter. In the circumstance, someone needs to tell Nigerian Senators that our citizens are greatly disappointed by their lackadaisical approach towards oversight functions which ought to be used to place an effective check on policy implementation in the country. The media and civil society groups must find a way of holding the legislature accountable.
The other subject for which Oshiomhole deserves commendation is his firm stand against the creation of additional agencies that have duplicated functions. This time, credit must also be given to other Senators such as Natasha Akpoti-Uduaghan (PDP, Kogi) and Victor Umeh (Anambra LP) who were reported to have similarly opposed the penchant of their col- leagues for patronising daily bills for creating unviable
agencies. It was as a result of their efforts that the Senate rejected a bill seeking to establish the National Road Transport Council of Nigeria whose anticipated mandate is to regulate road transport and the transportation profession in Nigeria. If a new body is set up for this purpose, should we not abolish the Federal Road Safety Commission FRSC?
It is transparently irrational to have more than one agency performing same task. This is because it amounts to a waste of precious time spent on unhealthy jurisdictional claims. The more annoying of such struggles is the one where agencies exploit Nigerians in subjects like the inspection of vehicle particulars and licences. It also explains why our government has been unable to cut down its unwieldy size despite her several moves to implement the report of the Oronsaye Panel set up during the Jonathan led-government to reduce the size of government. While the executive branch has continued to prevaricate and consistently moved one step forward and three backwards, the legislature which says it is committed to collaborating with the executive has continued to use bills to create new agencies in the country.
What is however inexplicable, is the fact whenever some persuasive contributions are made on a subject, majority of Senators behave as if they are absent minded by producing a voice vote that runs counter to reasoning. Last month, a bill for an Act to Establish the National Institute for Educational Planning and Administration and another bill to Establish the Federal University of Applied Sciences Manchok, Kaduna State were introduced to the Senate. In his contribution, Senator Oshiomhole drew attention to the fact that passing the bills would adversely affect the capacity of government to provide capital allocations to agencies because recurrent expenditure would have exhausted government resources for the sector. Although many members nodded in agreement with the former Edo governor, the bills were still passed for 2nd reading.
It is thus time to call on members of the National Assembly to put a halt to their practice of bringing agencies into existence through the passage of bills. For an agency to be viable and indeed for it to survive over time, there are many other things that ought to be done before a law is passed to bring legitimacy to bear on the concerned agency. For example, the Senate in 2022 sought to introduce six new campuses of the Nigerian Law School without the involvement of the relevant authority- the Council for Legal Education. The six campuses were to be sited in the villages of certain Senators. No feasibility studies were carried out to ascertain the suitability of the locations just as none of the villages had adequate infrastructure to support the birth of the schools.
Now that Adams Oshiomhole has regained his tenacity as an activist, there is doubt if it is fair for us to look forward to when he can boldly tell the nation about the real take-homepay (not just salaries) of our legislators. If he tries it, he may not survive the hammer of the Senate. Another activist, Shehu Sani who tried it some years ago was to later confess that he was lucky to be rescued by some powerful forces.
