INSECURITY: Under the watch of the Nigerian National Assembly, Nigeria is falling apart! – Ugochukwu Nwaokoro

 

By Ugochukwu Nwaokoro

The failure of the National Assembly Members to seriously hold Buhari And  the Executive Branch accountable on many occasions contributed to more problems in Nigeria.

Hon. Ugochukwu Nwaokoro

The inability of the Nigerian National Assembly, especially the Nigerian Senate, to hold President Buhari accountable, has helped to buttress my point in an earlier article that the Nigerian National Assembly as presently constituted should be abolished and done away with. To replace the current National Assembly will be what I called “the House of Speakers”, made up of the 36 speakers or their appointed delegates of the various State Assemblies plus one delegate from the FCT. They will periodically meet in Abuja one week out of every month to deliberate on issues National interest, vote and approve federal budget and to confirm or deny the president’s appointments.

In the case of a national emergency, members of the House of Speakers could be called in by the current president of the House of Speakers on a quick notice to meet. Let me not dwell much on the House of Speakers here, since the operational blue print has been stated in my earlier article with the proposal and instead  focus more on why the country is falling apart under the watch of the Nigerian National Assembly.

The National Assembly that’s supposed to checkmate and exercise an oversight duties over the presidency and the entire cabinet branch of government has failed so woefully. The National Assembly under the second term of Buhari first started as a rubber stamp to president Buhari, approving everything president Buhari has presented to it, including confirmation of all president Buhari’s appointments, qualified or unqualified, creating a lopsided cabinet and executive branch unjustly dominated by northern Fulani Muslims.

Insecurity of lives and properties have continued to worsen in Nigeria, with daily killings, banditry, kidnapping, destruction of public and private facilities, yet the National Assembly has failed to hold president Buhari and his government accountable. Even in some cases where the National Assembly has invited president Buhari and members of his cabinet to appear before the Assembly, they failed to appear, yet the National Assembly has refused to exercise its oversight powers, including but not limited to invoking the articles of impeachment. Rather than doing its job, the Nigerian National Assembly continues to sit silent while the country drifts to anarchy and into a failed state.

If the Nigerian National Assembly cannot perform her duties, why then should Nigerian tax payers continue to waste money on its members and on its existence. The fact that most members of the Nigerian National Assembly are confined in Lagos and Abuja because they are not able to visit their constituencies due to insecurity in the country has not compelled them to do their job. Instead, they sit tight in Abuja while their constituents are raped, kidnapped, killed and in some cases their properties and livelihoods are burned and destroyed! What manner of Representatives can be so insensitive to the plight and suffering of their constituents?

If Nigeria falls apart tomorrow, president Buhari alone should not be blamed. The Nigerian National Assembly would share in the blame because it has the power to put the president on check, but failed to do the needful to exercise its constitutional power of oversight, including the power of the purse!

Posterity will not spare the Nigerian National Assembly for its failure to rise up to save the country from self imposed destruction.

– Ugochukwu Nwaokoro

 

Ugochukwu Nwaokoro is the President /CEO of African Diaspora For Good Governance.

He was a Deputy Mayor of the City Of Newark, New Jersey. USA.


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