Not a few observers of the US democracy were stunned over the recent bizarre drama at the Capitol – the nation’s central legislature when a mob, apparently in support of the outgoing President Donald Trump, breached the premises unprecedentedly.
While some scaled its walls, others actually gained entrance into some offices to violate the institution. The action of the mob who were wearing caps emblazoned with pro-Donald Trump messages, was apparently programmed to disrupt the process of verifying Electoral College votes by Congress – a procedure that would lead to a final statement on the contested November 4 2020 presidential polls. As can be recalled, Donald Trump who lost the vote count in that exercise had vehemently contested the results, claiming that he was robbed in the polls. His presidential ‘indictment’ of the exercise eventually led to an elaborate review of the entire polls from state to state, in a process that further divided and pitched political interests and lobbies in the US, against each other.
Among the fallouts from the development was shooting by the Congressional security personnel, which led to at least the death of one suspected female mobster, as well as other contingent measures to safeguard the sanctity of the institution. On the flip side of the outcomes was that the vote verification process progressed as intended with the Congress declaring Trump the ultimate loser and Joe Biden the winner. What a poetic play-out of justice.
Ever since, public opinion circles across the US and around the world have been ruminating and digesting the circumstances of the street rage that led to the eventual storming of the Capitol by the mob, along with whatever lessons from such. The trending angles to the situation include why such a development should occur in of all places the US, easily the world’s greatest and therefore model democracy. Also associated with that question is the fact that in spite of such an unexpected development, the country’s political institutions stood capable of containing any fallout from it, leaving the country to run business as usual. Not a few believe it was a well-orchestrated venture by the mob to press home their grievances over the electoral misfortune of their idol Trump.
From a generic perspective while the attack on the US Congress may seem ‘sacrilegious’ to some observers, it is the lot of parliaments to undergo such extreme and abhorrent outcomes occasionally. This is just as the end of such occasional acts of disorder in and around the parliament cannot be in sight. Parliaments are by nature crucibles for exploring and digesting varying and often conflicting points of view and interests, over which some persons within or without the institution can adopt extreme dispositions. Why the US incidence attracted so much attention and condemnation was due primarily to the integrity of the democratic culture of the country, whereby things work as expected, and any deviation from an approved line of action, instantly attracts an adequate response.
Even the home of modern parliaments – the British Parliament has its own complement of tales of parliament bashers with perhaps the most notorious being Guy Fawkes who with his associates in 1605, planned to blow up the beautiful edifice of the institution to smithereens, with a cache of dynamite hidden in the building. But for the act of providence, the story of the world famous British Parliament would have been different today. In other parts of the world the parliament had also been a butt of sundry attacks launched either by sponsoring crises among the members or by directly executing tacit or manifest destabilization schemes on it, in order to thwart the routine processes of the institution, ostensibly when the outcome of a designated parliamentary procedure would not favour powerful interests. Hence what the US Congress just witnessed is just another face of a section of the general public expressing their dissent in an unusual manner. While it may be strange to Americans of today, such is routine in several parts of the world. Even in the US of the past, there was a time when Congressmen came to town with pistols in their holsters and rifles under their cloaks.
For Nigerians, the attack on the US Capitol draws reminiscences of similar acts of anomy against the National Assembly and even several state assemblies. Easily arising as a question from the US experience, is how Nigeria’s legislative would have fared in similar circumstances. Immediately coming to mind is the case of the brazen, broad daylight theft of the Mace from the Senate Chamber in April 2018, by apparently armed hoodlums. Nigerians cannot easily forget the circumstances around that development, especially as the assailants escaped unchallenged by the security personnel on duty. Expectedly the development spawned a fallout of recriminations and blame game, which attracted aspersions rightly or wrongly to several persons, with the situation nearly vitiating the grievousness of the outrage. That development which led to the assault of staff of the institution serves as a timeless eye-opener to the vulnerability of the country’s legislative institutions, given that they are mostly mere sitting ducks, for any assailant to breach their premises and even personnel.
The primary lesson from the US Congress incident is the obvious cause of the development which in their case was the intervention of the institution in resolving the logjam over last November polls, following Trump’s claim that he was robbed. S an arm of government they did not take sides with him on impulse, but opted to investigate and verify his claims. Today in Nigeria there are several situations that are burning the soul of the country as seemingly insolvent only because the proper disposition to them has not been mustered. Much of these problems are festering simply because the legislative institutions namely the National and state assemblies along with the legislative chambers of the 774 local governments are shying away from confronting such frontally. The consequence is the trending state of incontinence of governance across the country. And when government remains incontinent, anarchy takes over. That is the extant state of affairs in Nigeria’s public space.
The currently trending crises in the country including insecurity, political exclusion of certain citizens, are all begging for the definitive and constructive engagement by the legislature with the other arms of government. Incidentally the constitution provide for the specific procedures for resolving such issues. For instance, is it a mystery that the government appears clueless in moving the country forward when it fails to tag along with the citizenry in addressing the burning issues of the day? In this respect it offers the country little credit that at least two major reports on restructuring the country namely the National Political Reform Conference of 2005 under President Olusegun Obasanjo administration and the National Conference under the administration of President Goodluck Jonathan, have been left to wallow and gather dust on government shelves for years on end, while the present administration is seemingly groping for fresh ideas on how to move the country forward. At least, even as the executive branch sees no merit in such previous enterprises out of parochial and partisan political considerations, and avoided them as a plague, the legislature is duty bound to go beyond partisanship and interrogate tendencies that will make or mar the country.
In the same vein, just as the US Congress rose to the occasion to resolve the impasse over the Trump election saga, so the National Assembly along with the state assemblies remain duty bound to revisit the various reports and recommendations on restructuring the country and act as needful. Only that will place this country on the road to the proverbial next level.
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