After spending huge sums of money and time to seek positions at the Senate, and after only one month of activity on the floor of the red chamber following its inauguration on June 11, 2019, many of the senators have converted the chamber into a sleeping parlour. A nation is doomed when elected lawmakers abandon their reason d’être at the National Assembly to become the biblical sleeping Eutychus.
Sleeping distinguished senators of the federal republic tell part of the Nigerian story as a country where anything goes. Again, the art of sleeping on duty by senators underscores the importance they attach to the job they are elected to do. And if after one month a senator is so tired that he sleeps away, it remains to be known what happens in the next four years.
Poverty, ethnicity and religion have conspired to make mockery of not only the electoral system in Nigeria, but also democracy as a brand of government in the country. Political pundits say the absurd things seen in the Nigerian political landscape do happen because the political class is exploiting the looseness, weaknesses and loopholes in the polity, all fueled by primordial sentiments.
Because of poverty, people accept anything from political office seekers and sell their conscience to them and thereafter, lose the sovereign power which they have as the electorate or electors. Again, because of religion, ethnicity and other parochial consideration, the people in whom power resides cannot initiate any move aimed to recall an erring elected political office holder.
But it is so unfortunate that people spend so much money, cause destruction and death in extreme cases to win election only to go to the place where duty calls and sleep while matters of importance are being discussed and debated. This means they have not gone there to represent anybody.
To think that almost all of these people who have been caught in the sleeping act are former public officers, mostly former state governors, who denied their people of good governance in order to amass enough wealth for their elections, make matters worse.
“These people have gone to represent their people in the Senate. They are not doing that. Instead they have gone there to sleep. What a betrayal, what a waste of public resources and public trust invested in them, as well as insensitivity to the plight of the people,” noted Emmanuel Okechukwu, a public affairs commentator, who could not come to terms with the idea of a senator sleeping on duty.
Okechukwu said he could not understand the reason for the desperation that usually characterize the quest for power by the Nigerian politicians who can do anything to get that power which they would not use to advantage or benefit of the people they have gone to represent.
“Just come to think of it: Some of these people did not pick their victory on a platter of gold. Some took the battle beyond the ballot box to the court, spent time and money on fierce litigation only to secure the victory and go to the floor of the senate to sleep,” he lamented.
What is happening in the country in which senators now see the Senate as an old people’s home calls for a critical review of the modus operandi of the entire National Assembly. Agreed that the country is operating a borrowing system of government—president system—which allows some of the absurdities we see, nothing prevents the country from adjusting it to suit our peculiar circumstance.
The presidential system is not only too expensive, it is also very attractive in terms of remuneration, allowances and other pecks of office which is why many ex-governors see the senate as a retirement home where they go to continue to enjoy their ill-gotten wealth alongside the ‘freebees’ which the Senate offers.
Amidst widespread poverty in the land, each senator, including the sleeping ones, is said to be collecting over N10 million per month in a country where civil servants who report to duty without fail are paid N30,000 per month.
Looking at the Red Chamber on the few days they are in session, the chamber is largely empty as some senators don’t attend plenary sessions up to five times in a month, and when they do, they go there to sleep. This is enough reason for the country to decide and make the two chambers of the National Assembly a part time business so that only patriotic Nigerians will be found there.
“A situation where a senator is paid for not doing anything is not acceptable; receiving tax payers money for just going to the so-called hallowed chamber to sleep amounts to cheating and therefore, unacceptable to the good, but suffering people of Nigeria,” Okechukwu noted, stressing that time has come for the country to put an end to these cheating that is seen in every corner of the country.
CHUKA UROKO
