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BELOW are views on the National Assembly that are hard to ignore. Prof. Itse Sagay is a patriot of unimpeachable integrity, who has paid his dues in years of fearless advocacy against corruption and civil rights abuse. He is a professor of Law. He spoke recently with SUN’s Omoniyi Salaudeen
On senate’s attempt to amend the code of conduct tribunal while senate president faced trial for false declaration of assets: There are two major issues connected to this occurrence. One is the moral issue. Legislature is set up for the good governance, peace and security of the country. It is not set up to give those who have been elected an opportunity of changing the law for their own personal and individual convenience.
That is the moral issue first. If you look at the proposal, basically they were trying to reduce the power of the tribunal, giving the impression that they themselves are already guilty of some acts, which is within the jurisdiction of the tribunal. So, the idea was to give themselves advance immunity to cover up whatever offences they have committed. Though technically, the National Assembly can make laws, but laws are not to be made by them for their own personal convenience, turning the whole country into their backyard for advancing their invidious personal interest.
To toy into that really gives the whole world the impression that we are still a backward Third World country without any basic principles that govern the conduct of those who are ruling us at the legislative level. It is a total, shameless abuse of power. It is lack of restraint in self-promotion and self-protection at the expense of the whole country.
The moral burden they are carrying is just too heavy I am surprised that we have a group of legislators who don’t have shame. They just carry on as if they are in some animal jungle. There should be limit to promoting self-interest at the expense of the country because the people of this country can rise up one day and decide to end this type of oppression and insensitivity, which particularly the Senate has been demonstrating.
Going to buy cars that cost as much as N38 million per unit of car for themselves in a country where people are finding it difficult to enjoy a meal a day is unacceptable. And this is because it is not their money. There is a level in which they will be stopped, if they carry on like this.
On the senate president presiding over senate affairs even as he faces trial: If you look at all that has happened with regards to Saraki, you will see that it thoroughly defines what we mean by shamelessness and impunity. First, when he was going to the tribunal, he had about 80 senators, marching beside him. Where in the world does that happen? An arm of government vacated its premises and poured on the street shamelessly and totally overwhelmed the tribunal. Honestly, this level of backwardness is phenomenal. It’s unprecedented that people are so primitive, so barbaric that they did not see that they have made themselves a laughing stock in the international community.
Two, when a person is charged, you plead either guilty or not guilty. If you plead guilty, the case is closed. If you plead not guilty, then allow the case to be heard. But you cannot plead not guilty and insist that the case will never be heard. Again, that is purely Nigerian phenomenon. You see one individual, supported by his colleagues who have no sense of morality or sense of responsibility trying to overrun and abuse the judicial system of a whole country. So many terrible things are happening to the extent that he wants the court hearing his case to be subject to Senate sittings. He wants the case to be heard when he is not presiding. The whole thing is so shocking and unbelievable. To crown it all, the legislative arm now wants to invite the judicial arm to answer questions.
It is as if these people are so ignorant and unconscious of the responsibility of their office. You summon a judge sitting over your case! What does that mean? You now want to query the judge who is handling your case, intimidate him to ridicule, just because he is doing his job. Honestly our legislature in this country is totally unfit to preside at local government level. They are a disgrace to any country. These people are just too primitive to hold any public office, all of them.
On the legislature’s power to summon a judge: Absolutely, they have no such power. They can only summon people when they are considering activities to which they have voted money. If they are not satisfied with the way the money is being spent on a particular project, they can invite the minister or permanent secretary in that ministry to come and explain how money assigned to a particular project is being spent.
What they have done is totally unrelated to their powers. This man is effectively a judicial officer because he is presiding over a case involving law and he is empowered to give judgment. It completely violates the constitution because one arm of government wants to subdue and subjugate the other arm and render it useless and subservient to it. What they have done is abominable. And that is why I said their level of ignorance and total lack of civility and morality is outrageous and very disturbing.
On lawmakers’ belief that his (Senate President) trial is politically motivated:
That is not the question. The question is did he commit the offence? If he committed the offence, whether it is politically motivated or not is irrelevant. Nobody can take me to a tribunal and charge me for anything and I will say it is political. Let anybody take me there now, I will not say it is political because I have not done anything. So, that cover up is irrelevant. If he was not guilty, he will not be susceptible to any political action by anybody.
A man should be clean when holding political office. If you are not clean, then anything can happen to you and you dare not say it is political vendetta. If you are clean, nobody can take you up. I think it is a distraction which should be ignored. If it is political, it means you haven’t done anything wrong. The court will vindicate you by the time you show your evidence that you have not done anything. Once you are guilty, the issue of whether or not it is political is irrelevant. This is the more reason Saraki should be confident because he can go as far as Supreme Court.