Our fighting lawmakers

As we entered the International Conference Centre, Durban, we sat down at a corner waiting for the day’s event to start. The opening ceremony the previous night was grand. Those of us from Nigeria swaggered that night as the then South African Deputy President, Mrs. Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka, had praised our people’s sense of fashion.

She said that our ladies were the most fashionable in the continent and did not disguise her admiration for our fashion. “Nigerian ladies always look very fabulous in their outfits,” she enthused. With that statement, we made some noise-the Nigerian way of course. Trust us, our very chic ladies in the house stood up and waved-at least for those in doubt to see that the Deputy President was not speaking tongue-in-cheek.

That was at the 2006 ‘Indaba’, a travel trade event organised annually by the South African Tourism. SATOUR had invited the then aviation correspondent of the Daily Independent, Mr. Rotimi Durojaiye and me to the event. While in Durban, we were joined by the Johannesburg bureau chief of the News Agency of Nigeria and the Voice of Nigeria correspondent in Pretoria (I can’t remember their names now).

As we sat down chatting, a very pretty young girl came to us. “He is not talking,” she said as she sat with us. “I need to be with people who are talking.” Thembeka (I hope I got it right), as she told us was her name, was speaking of her boss who was apparently in no mood to talk. They worked for the Swaziland Broadcasting Corporation and had come to Durban to cover the event.

Being the one sitting nearest to her, I engaged her in a chat. “Why is every news I get from Swaziland about the king and his many wives?” I quizzed. Her reply? Wait for it- “Why is every news I get from Nigeria about corruption?” She fired back. That, to me, was a blow very much below the belt. Desperately trying to get even with her, I asked if there were Nigerians in her country. “Yes,” she replied. What do they do? I asked. “They are all rich but you never know what they do,” she said. My God! This one, indeed, was a technical knockout.

That same day, I met a South African who worked at the University of Pretoria Radio. After introducing myself as a Nigerian she told me she didn’t trust Nigerians. “I don’t trust Nigerians,” she said. “My pastor is a Nigerian and I don’t think I trust him”.

Even though I later forced out some good comments on Nigeria (like acknowledging our sense of fashion, our home videos-Thembeka loved them so much- and lots of Nigerian professionals scattered in Southern Africa) from them, I buried my head in shame. If not that there are very many things to appreciate and thank God for about our darling country, I would have regretted being a Nigerian on that day.

That experience reminded me of a report in NTA Newsline sometime in the 1990s. An NTA reporter who was in Israel had asked a young boy what he knew about Nigeria and the boy replied in smattering English: “Nigeria, they have oil, you pay for oil, and they don’t give you oil.” Too bad!

But why do others see us this way? The fisticuffs in the House of Representative last week may provide an answer. In the presence of high school students who had come to observe proceedings of the House, our so called honourable members threw decorum to the dogs and engaged in a free-for-all, offending the sensibilities of the visiting minors.

I don’t really have issues with the fight in the House, for legislators in different countries have fought at one time or the other. Just in April, Ukrainian legislators fought over the ratification of the Russian fleet status. Eggs and smoke bombs were used by the lawmakers to resolve their differences over the terms of the treaty on Russian naval base lease.

In January, there was a free-for-all in Taiwan Parliament over proposed amendments to the Local Government Act. Legislators punched and wrestled one another to the ground and one member of the governing party said he was bitten by a member of the opposition.

In July last year, a clash by lawmakers in South Korea over new media reform laws left at least one of them hospitalised. Also in March 2005, Russian lawmakers exchanged blows over a proposed law aimed at easing restrictions on ownership of television networks.

But the difference between other brawls and the one in our own National Assembly is that ours is directly linked to corruption.

 A group of lawmakers known as Progressive Minded Legislators had accused Speaker Dimeji Bankole of graft. They catalogued the Speaker’s alleged ‘sins’ and issued him a seven -day ultimatum to resign from his position. On the expiration of the seven days, they forwarded their report to the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission and called on the anti-graft body to investigate the Speaker.

But the Speaker and his group could take none of it. For taking an ‘internal’ matter to the EFCC without exhausting all dispute resolution mechanism in the House, the Speaker’s camp resolved to suspend 11 stalwarts of the PML. It was while the motion of suspension was being moved that the leader of the PML, Mr. Dino Melaye, stood up and aggressively raised a point of order, then a scuffle ensued followed by a free-for-all.

One, however, has been wondering why Melaye and members of his group were suspended just because they called for the Speaker’s probe. One has also been wondering why the leadership of the House did not wait to clear its name before wielding the big stick on their accusers? Doesn’t suspending the PML members just a day after they called on the EFCC to investigate the House leadership suspicious? When will our lawmakers focus on making laws that will benefit those they are assumed to be representing and stop fighting over issues affecting their pockets?

Our roads are bad and our lawmakers have not fought over it. Kidnappers have overrun the South East and South South zones and we have not heard a word from the institution which should ask the law enforcement agencies questions. The education sector has collapsed and rather than find a solution all our lawmakers can do is to amend the Constitution in such a way that guarantees them more money to send their children to schools abroad.

It’s time the civil society groups focused on corruption in the legislature. Those who make laws for us should be above board. The Save Nigeria Group and others, while calling for credible elections, should also protest against corruption in any guise and jolt anti-graft agencies into investigating reported cases of corruption.

And for those of us who can’t do much now, let’s wait for the lawmakers in 2011. We have a constitutional duty to prevent corrupt people from representing us at any level.