Once more, the National Assembly is being forced through a vortex of crises by the very official that was designated to uphold its integrity and when necessary protect it. He is none other than the retiring Clerk to the National Assembly (CNA) and head of its bureaucracy – Amos Ojo. Statutorily designated to proceed on November 14, 2022 for his three-month pre-retirement leave, which is pursuant to finally signing off on February 14, 2023 when he will be 60 years old to retire mandatorily, he has rather elected to defy constituted authority as well as extant rules of the country’s public service, and sit tight in office on a throne with vanishing powers and hollow authority, even as his conduct is stirring up turbulence in the system.
It is easily recalled that the National Assembly Service Commission (NASC), in recognition of Ojo’s due exit from service and in exercise of its statutory powers, recently appointed Sani Tambuwal as Acting Clerk to the National Assembly. With this development the issue of succession in the leadership structure of the institution should have been rested in order to allow it move to the next level under a fresh dispensation. This is however not happening, due mainly to Ojo’s misguided enterprise in arresting the development of the institution. He had deployed several antics to achieve his disruptive objective of stalling due process, including the subtle conscription of the presiding officers of the Senate and House of Representatives for the venture; their status barred condition with respect to intervening in matters that belong to the NASC, notwithstanding.
It needs to be recalled that on September 19 2020, soon after Amos Ojo was first appointed as the CNA, this column ran an article ‘N/Assembly Bureaucracy Rescue Mission: Matters Arising’ which warned of the onset of incongruities that could be visited on the institution with the arrival of the gentleman on the coveted seat. While in characteristic style of this column, the article did not intend any pun on the gentleman, institutional memory as was available to this author as a retired Director of Information and Publications in the National Assembly, propelled him to caution that given the paucity of earlier mentoring of the officer, his appointment was akin to asking “a carpenter to produce a designer tuxedo suit”. Today the words of that piece have become not just prescient, but actually prophetic. The whole country and even the world outside are watching with concern how an individual officer is simply prancing around like a bull in a ‘China shop’, to desecrate the hallowed office of the head of the bureaucracy of the country’s central legislature – the National Assembly, simply because he is ill at ease to leave the stage when it is statutorily due to do so.
However, the futility of Ojo’s sit-tight enterprise is accentuated by the prompt appointment by the National Assembly Service Commission (NASC), of Sani Tambuwal as the Acting Clerk to the National Assembly, and a replacement to the outgone Ojo, with great expectations of a restoration agenda by the new incumbent. Given the prestige, visibility and responsibility attached to the office, ascendancy to it remains the dream of every legislative bureaucrat. Hence Ojo’s tenacity in holding unto the office could be excused. However as basic group dynamics dictates, he may have succeeded in putting himself up for a dishonourable exit from office, into an ignominous embrace with posterity.
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Meanwhile, with his appointment, Sani Tambuwal joins as the seventh in line, the elite ranks of heads of the legislative bureaucracy of the country’s Fourth Republic (1999 to date), like Ibrahim Salim, Nasiru Arab, Oluyemi Ogunyomi, Salisu Maikasuwa, Ataba Sani-Omolori and the immediate past incumbent, Amos Ojo. This dispensation assigns him a historic mission to stamp his imprint on the fortunes of the institution. And this is where the wager of a ‘Tambuwal Restoration Agenda’ is anchored. He is coming into office at a tIme of significant dislocations in the administrative fabric of the institution – courtesy of the acts of omission and commission associated with the less than impressive runs in office of his immediate two predecessors namely Ataba Sani-Omolori and Amos Ojo.
It is trite knowledge that the public service is built on the framework of statutory rules and regulations which are impersonal to any individual but only stand to protect public interest. Hence when an individual breaches the rules he or she does incalculable damage to the establishment, which may need some designated response for restoration. Against the foregoing therefore stand in bold relief legacies of dislocations and incongruities from the past, and which offer any new leadership significant challenge to resolve. For incoming Tambuwal he has his job cut out for him as far as these disturbing legacies are concerned.
It needs no emphasis to state that the institution has had some operational negatives which had also drawn ire from several of its veterans in the legislative mission field, with not a few calling for some definitive remediation measures. ‘Can Tambuwal with his commendable resume deliver on the needed turnaround initiative’, seems to be the hanging question here. This is where consideration zeroes in on the personal credentials of the incumbent when juxtaposed with the challenges which the office presents.
Self-effacing as he is, Sani Tambuwal is not only a Mathematician of repute, but has further enriched his capacities and competencies by acquiring additional academic and professional laurels, including a Masters degree in Business Administration from his alma mater, the prestigious Usman Danfodio University Sokoto. Counting among his training life are stints in several of the world’s leading capacity- development platforms including Havard University USA and Nigeria’s elite National Institute of Strategic Studies (NIPSS) Kuru Jos. He is currently also a chartered accountant and acclaimed as one of the best budget managers in the country. It perhaps need to be stated that not a few pundits aver that beyond his status as the most senior in service year among his peers in office, his long standing involvement with matters bordering on the country’s and National Assembly office budgets, dispose him as the officer that the institution needs at this time in its history.
However, on a personal note Tambuwal’s appointment conjures a throwback for this author of a 2006 meeting with one Professor V.K. Basu at the University of Cambridge United Kingdom in the course of which he asked with palpable concern, “how can a man who cannot read a balance sheet, manage government money?” With defined cadence Basu provided the answer to his question – by averring that such an individual “will either waste or steal it”.
The foregoing notwithstanding, with Tambuwal’s ascendancy, the National Assembly and its various publics can now settle for the expectations from his leadership of its legislative bureaucracy along with those of the state assemblies which need to take a cue from the federal legislature. Needles to point out that his mission is hardly enviable, and needs all the goodwill he can muster.
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