By Comrade Musa Bature
It is clear that all is not well with the National Assembly if recent appointments are anything to go by.
Few months ago, one Mr Emmanuel Odo who has been embroiled in a scandalous saga involving alleged falsification of age, forgery of official documents, perjury and lying under oath was appointed Acting Clerk of the Senate, over and above more senior colleagues despite outrage and protests from a broad cross section of the NASS staff and management.
Numerous civil society groups, NGOs, human, professional and labour rights activists lodged petitions with the relevant law enforcement agencies while media activists also expressed their displeasure through the print and social media all to no avail!
To rub insult on injury, the National Assembly Commission last week, went further to confirm the said Emmanuel Odo as Senate Clerk while at the same time appointing a substantive Director, Alhaji Sidi lbrahim as Acting Clerk of the House of Representatives to replace the outgoing Clerk, Dr Yahaya Danzaria thus unjustly sidelining several permanent secretaries who are more senior than Alhaji Sidi lbrahim in the administrative hierarchy!
This untoward development has sent shockwaves through the entire NASS landscape and it’s negative reverberations are being felt not only within the nation’s vast MDA bureaucracy but also in other legislative and administrative establishments worldwide given Nigeria’s status in the global comity of nations!
Indeed if these glaring anomalies of the rule of law, due process, the seniority rule and extant provisions of the civil and public service regulations are not swiftly addressed, the National Assembly and Nigeria in particular will irreparably become laughing stocks and objects of ridicule and derision worldwide.
These imprudent breaches of the rule of law and due process has grave legal and constitutional implications as well as seriously denting the collective morale and efficacy of the NASS workforce not to talk of breeding ethnic and religious tensions within the rank and file of the NASS administrative organogram.
It is high time the Senate President as the Chairman of the National Assembly or the Presidency decisively wades into the brewing controversies occasioned by these irregular and illegitimate appointments with a view to reversing them and appointing the most experienced and most qualified persons to those pivotal positions.
Failure to act decisively will only deepen the widening divisions, fractures and factions emerging among the disaffected and disillusioned NASS staff/management which will definitely not augur well for the nation’s global standing as a mature, stable, just and durable democracy.
The National Assembly may end up being ridiculed and pilloried as the black sheep of national parliaments all over the world and may even face sanctions and restrictions from global inter-parliamentary bodies like the lnternational Parliamentary Union (IPU), the African Parliament and other global legislative institutions.
A stitch in time is definitely needed to save the National Assembly.
BATURE, A LEGISLATIVE AFFAIRS EXPERT WHO WROTE IN FROM KADUNA, KADUNA STATE.
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