As Reps whine and fret over the bribery scandal rocking its chambers, the Senate wait in silence, but the consensus is that the Senate President, David Mark has successfully cleared the Senate of such land mines. UCHENNA AWOM in this analysis traces history of the dark days in the Senate.
The House of Representatives has bulked at least for now. It is not the best of times for the lower chamber, but on the contrary, Senate and its President, David Mark are advancing and seems to have evaded the proverbial banana peels, that usually consume its Presidents in quick succession.
Therefore, what the trouble in the House evokes is to recount history and the ugly experiences that dogged the evolution of the present National Assembly, which hit the ground running since 1999.
Since the dawn of the Fourth Republic in 1999, the National Assembly has had such high turnover of presiding officers, which at some points elicited the common refrain of strewed ‘banana peels’ awaiting any new presiding officer.??
That was the standard joke then and which informed observer’s calculations of how long a Senate President or Speaker of the House of Representatives would last on the seat.
The reason, however, was because of the nature and age of the national parliament. At every point in Nigeria’s evolutionary process, the National Assembly have had to pay the debt each time the military strikes to disrupt the democratic process.
That being the case, the youngest of all the arms of government in Nigeria is the National Assembly and that makes it vulnerable. The implication is what we are seeing today and the easy deployment of instruments of blackmail at all time by the executive, simply to lower their image in the estimation of the unsuspecting Nigeria public.
That notwithstanding, the vulnerability of some presiding officers is made manifest in their poor knowledge of public financing before they assume such high profile office.
And so, perhaps partly owing to such inexperience in public finance administration and control, most presiding officers fell to the allure of power and the overbearing pressures of power-mongers that always lurk in the corridors.
So, it was not surprising that between 1999 and 2007, the South-East created record by producing one Senate President each from the five states that make up the geopolitical zone.
Some voluntarily resigned while others were impeached, ostensibly after heated debates on one contract scam after another. Suddenly, ‘ways and means’, usually heard in the civil service entered the legislative lexicons.
Dateline
Former Senate President, late Senator Chuba Okadigbo, was the first when his tenure was hacked down in a rather very controversial manner following a contract scam in the first Senate. He was alleged to have given what the lawmakers called then ‘anticipatory approval’ of about N175 million for the installation of street lights in the legislative quarters of legislators at Apo.
His removal, no doubt, had the imprint of the presidency then because Okadigbo at that time enjoyed the support of his colleagues, who exhibited open reluctance to see him go, though some of his colleagues caved in to carefully written scripts by the presidency.
The next was former Senate President Adolphus Wabara who was also forced to resign following allegations from President Olusegun Obasanjo, after he was fingered in a celebrated N55 million bribe-for-budget scam which involved the then Education Committees in the National Assembly and a former Education Minister, Prof Fabian Osuji.
Wagbara voluntarily stepped down to pave way for investigation by the Independent Corrupt Practices Commission (ICPC). Several years after, Wabara was eventually cleared of any corrupt charges.
Not so for Mark
However, the incumbent Senate President, Senator David Mark, who was a prominent figure and a key actor in the power game of that period, was so prominent that he led the G-86 and the joke then was that Wabara was also a member of that group.
Observers have variously blamed the upheavals in the Senate then on the prevailing policy where the Senate President and chairmen of standing committees can initiate contracts, approve it and in most cases, execute such contracts without recourse to the Clerk of the National Assembly.
By the laid down civil service organogram governing the management of the national legislature, the CNA is the chief accounting officer.
Besides, the extant laws do not allow chairmen of standing committees to spend or withdraw committee funds without recourse to the committee clerk.
Such arrangement also empowers the committee secretaries to manage funds allocated to committees, winch are dispensed on a quarterly basis. Unfortunately, this rule was abused by the past leadership in the National Assembly in no uncertain manner.
The Clerk then was seen as a mere ‘errand boy’. Like any other member of the public, the clerk learned of award of contracts on the media, and such is only if such contracts are publicized.
Mark is fortunate and a National Assembly veteran, who has been in the chamber since 1999, is not ignorant of all these abuses and how some of these consumed some of his predecessors in office.
As a fourth term senator, therefore, Mark has seen it all and as such does not need any further lectures on how to avoid thorny issues that give rise to the dreaded ‘banana peels’ in the Senate.
The proverbial ‘banana peels’ underscored the delicate nature of such high public offices particularly when some rules were wittingly circumvented. It was learnt that Mark, in his first term as Senate President between 2007-2011, told his bewildered colleagues that their first assignment to show that they are one big family would be to clear the Senate chamber of the ‘political banana peels’ which had hitherto claimed the jobs and political careers of some past Senate Presidents.
Of course such funny remarks were seen as weighty and underlined the associated apprehension of the occupants of the office.
So, apparently prepared to create a record, Mark took certain radical steps then to promote financial discipline in the management of Senate funds.
His first and foremost move was Mark’s decision to allow chairmen of the standing committees free hands to operate. Next, he advocated greater participation of the committees secretaries in the running of the committee’s finances.
“Compliance with the former directive is something else but what is important today is that the Senate President has gone a notch further to introduce fiscal discipline in the management of the Senate funds and indeed the finances of the National Assembly.
“Arguably, Mark’s order did not go down well with some of his colleagues, particularly those who were already used to the old order as some, even in the leadership cadre, believed in the old ways of doing things”, said a senator on condition of anonymity.
Another landmark charge was his admonition to his colleagues to join hands with him in building a new Senate devoid of the scandals which characterized its past.
Senator Mark and many of his colleagues believed that it was time to correct the negative public perception of the Senate and by extension the National Assembly. Mark did not stop at that as he told his committee chairmen to shun any gratification of any form from any government agency which was under their supervision.
Thus, Mark introduced a new fiscal regime in the Senate; a situation where all contract awards would be pushed to the National Assembly management.
Although there is nothing to suggest any hint of financial trouble within and outside the Senate for now, Mark is still unrelenting in making sure that the new fiscal regime takes root. For now, and since 2007, Mark has returned the power of chief accounting officer to the Clerk to the National Assembly, Alhaji Salisu Maikasuwa.
Although as the Chairman of the National Assembly, the Senate President still needs to approve some contracts for the smooth running of the upper house, final financial approval now rests on Maikasuwa.
Maikasuwa, who now takes of the new order, may now know just how hot the seat is.
“This new order now puts Maikasuwa directly in the line of Economic and Financial Crime Commission (EFCC) scrutiny in the event of any foul play. By implication, Mark’s order has removed pressure from the prestigious Services Committee”, said an analyst.
In fact, Committee Chairman, Senator Suleiman Adokwe disclosed that “the new order is acceptable to us on the Services Committee. It means that financing of contracts would now be the responsibility of the National Assembly management headed by the Clerk. This was against the old order which allows the service committee, for instance, to initiate contracts and forward same to the Senate President as the approving authority”.
What it means is that if sustained, the new order may reduce the incidences of contract scams in the Senate. But some sceptics perceive it as a clever move by the Senate President to finally lay to rest the ‘ghost of banana peels’ off the senate. It is believed that the new fiscal order may put an end to the harvest of financial scandals in the National Assembly.
Well, the unfolding but unfortunate bribery drama in the House of Representatives is a clarion call for Mark to hold on to this policy, at least to ward off the “banana peels” during his tenure. What a wise move.