How Lawan’s 9th Senate fared in 4 years

The Ninth Senate yesterday held its valedictory session, which signaled an end to its four-year legislative session. Daily Trust on Sunday examines how it fared in four years

The outgone Red Chamber was inaugurated in June 2019 and Ahmad Lawan emerged as Senate president through a process devoid of the intrigues and rumpus that are shaping the 10th Assembly leadership race.

Lawan’s Senate presidency was not only peaceful, but its relationship with the executive was also rancour-free.

He had been unequivocal that the Senate under him would not be irrationally confrontational or deliberately embark on a collision course with the executive as witnessed during the 8th Senate.

• Time to reclaim Nigeria’s position in Africa and the world
• Will Rivers United swallow ‘elephants’ to retain league title?

In defence of his “same-page” relationship with the executive, Lawan said the Senate “will commit to the partnership rather than partisanship; and between us and the executive arm of government, we will choose unity of purpose over conflict and discord.”

Shortly after emerging as Senate president, Lawan rolled out his legislative agenda, with a target of passing legislation on the following key areas: security, economy, criminal legislation reform, public finance management, youth unemployment and substance abuse, standard of education, health care services, social safety net and constitutional amendment.

Other aspects include the independence of the legislature, electoral reforms and reviving the real sector and infrastructure.

The primary functions of parliamentarians as specified in the constitution include lawmaking, representation and oversight on the executive.

After four years the Ninth Senate under Lawan prides itself on achieving so much more than the previous assemblies.

In the last four years, over 1,129 bills were presented on the floor of the Senate, and over 500 were successfully passed while 131 got presidential assent.

Records also shows that 371 oversight visits were conducted to ministries, departments, agencies.

The 9th Senate confirmed 241 presidential appointments; 361 motions were moved and 488 resolutions were passed, which called the government’s attention to specific issues and sought their intervention.

It attributes this feat to the cordial working relationship with the executive, which had earned it the vile moniker of a “rubber stamp” parliament.

But the Senate president said he was not bothered about the misgivings by some Nigerians over its romance with the executive.

He told Senate correspondents on Wednesday that the unity of purpose and understanding of the two arms of government made it possible for the 9th National Assembly to achieve so much.

To its credit, the Ninth Senate, and by extension, the National Assembly under Lawan’s leadership, recorded a significant feat with the restoration of the country’s budget cycle to the January – December timeline, the passage of the Petroleum Industry Bill (now PIA) and Electoral Bill 2022 with many technological innovations.

Prominent legislations that also passed under Lawan’s leadership were the Deep Offshore and Inland Basin Production Sharing Contract (Amendment) Act, 2019, the Petroleum Industry Act, 2021 and the Companies and Allied Matters Act, 2020.

The Senate also passed several bills seeking the establishment of tertiary institutions, hospitals, commissions and agencies without consideration of its financial implications.

The constitution review exercise, which often gulps N1billion of taxpayers’ money every parliamentary session, was carried out by the outgone Assembly with high hopes that it would address critical issues facing the country.

After the exercise, out of the 68 bills that were passed by both the Senate and House of Representatives, only about 20 were signed into law.

Prominent among them are legislations raising the retirement age of judicial officers to 70 years, independence for state judiciaries and parliaments, and the approval of states’ participation in railways and power.

State police, resource control, fiscal federalism and local government autonomy, among others, suffered setbacks.

As representatives of the people, the outgone Senate, on several occasions, raised concerns about the country’s acute insecurity, and at some points called for a state of emergency on security and the sack of former service chiefs.

In furtherance of their action on the issue, the Red Chamber summoned and grilled heads of security agencies over the rising insecurity across the country and their plans to contain the situation. It also passed dozens of motions on security, with the Senate president urging his colleagues not to get tired of speaking about the issue.

At the height of the wanton killings and kidnapping by armed men, the opposition lawmakers threatened to impeach then President Muhammadu Buhari if the situation did not improve in six weeks. The threat, like others, fizzled out but insecurity continued to ravage the length and breadth of Nigeria.

The federal parliament came under heavy criticism over the speed with which it approved former President Buhari’s loan requests, amid concerns about the country’s rising debt profile.

None of the loan requests sent to the parliament for approval by the former president was declined. The few ones earlier rejected were later approved after pressure from the presidency.

The last of such borrowing request approved by the National Assembly for Buhari was the securitisation of N22.7trillion the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) granted the federal government under its Ways and Means. The money had long been spent before the government secured the parliament’s approval in violation of the extant laws.

With the approval, Lawan’s Senate, experts said, indicted itself because the advances were far above the approved threshold. The National Assembly, after much criticism, two weeks ago, hurriedly amended the CBN law to increase its borrowing limit to the government.

The $800million World Bank loan request former President Buhari sent to the parliament at the twilight of his administration is still under consideration.

The ‘same-page’ ties between the executive and the legislature headed by Buhari and Lawan respectively saw almost all presidential nominations for appointment approved, despite petitions against some nominees. The few rejected were those who shunned confirmation hearings because they declined the offer.

Lauretta Onochie, Buhari’s former aide on mew media, whose nomination for the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) job was rejected, got the Senate’s nod when she was offered to head the Board of the Niger Delta Development Commission.

The 9th National Assembly’s oversight of the executive to check excesses of government agencies was rated low, as budget heist, perpetuated through project duplication and inflated contracts continued unabated.

This is evident in the annual reports of the Auditor-General of the Federation on the financial dealings of government agencies.

In the report, considered by the National Assembly committees on public accounts, the auditor-general detailed how government agencies spent public funds without regard to financial regulations.

At an interactive session with the Senate Committee on Finance, in preparation for the 2023 budget, the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC) chairman, Professor Bolaji Owasanoye, said the 2021 and 2022 budgets were padded with duplicated projects worth N400 billion by ministries, departments and agencies (MDAs), while N49.9bn was earmarked as salaries for ghost workers in the first half of 2022.

Owasanoye said ICPC’s thorough scrutiny of approved budgets for various MDAs saved the federal government from wasting billions of naira on fictitious projects.

This revelation showed that the 9th National Assembly, like others, failed in its oversight duty to thoroughly scrutinise federal government’s annual budgets before approving them.

Members of the parliament were also not left out in the heist. The ICPC indicted several lawmakers in its constituency projects report. It documented cases of conversion of public property to personal use in executing constituency projects, shoddy completion, non-completion, or outright non-existence of these projects in their locale.

The anti-graft agency said the corrupt practices were allegedly being carried out by some project sponsors (lawmakers) in collaboration with public officers of the executing agencies.

The ICPC said it tracked 2,444 constituency projects between  2019 and 2022 and recovered N2.8bn in assets diverted or embezzled.

Auwal Musa Rafsanjani, the executive director, Civil Society Legislative Advocacy Centre (CISLAC), said the 9th Senate had done fairly well in terms of lawmaking, with the passage and signing of some critical bills to improve the electoral process and promote anti-graft with the anti-money laundering legislation.

He, however, said members of the parliament compromised their oversight of the executive to expose corruption and block leakages of public funds.

“Investigative hearings on allegations of financial malfeasance were abandoned halfway while those completed revealed nothing significant,” he said.

Rafsanjani, who is also the board chairman of Amnesty International in Nigeria, said the federal parliamentarians betrayed their representatives’ trust in approving borrowing requests for the federal government even when they violated the Fiscal Responsibility Act.

“Nigerians had expected the National Assembly to speak on their behalf on the suffering the removal of fuel subsidy had caused them, but the parliament was silent, while also failing to investigate fraud associated with fuel subsidy over the last four years.

He urged the incoming 10th Assembly to be thorough in oversight of the executive, as well as learn from the lapses of its predecessor in handling issues critical to the country’s development.