The time has come to disband the Federal House of Representatives in Nigeria. It one thing for it to be the utterly useless money-draining institution that I believe it is and another thing entirely for it to redefine its mission as Nigeria’s National Academy of Comedy and Comedians (NACCO). Pray, do these looting comedians in Abuja learn anything from their endless estacode-induced junketing around the world to mingle with their peers in other climes and observe how the legislative business is done?
A report in the November 6, 2009 edition of NEXT indicates that the House spent a considerable part of the legislative day debating vigorously whether or not to agree with reports that have recently labeled Nigeria a failed state! Unbelievable, isn’t it? But wait for this: Dimeji Bankole and Patricia Etteh even had a say in the matter. In a move indicative of what the Yoruba call “da bi mo ti da”, (I want you to be as wretched as I am), Dimeji Bankole rapturously recalled that he had been made privy to a case of bribery during a visit to Canada. His logic, I guess, is this: if pervasive bribery (i.e. runaway corruption) is one of the indices of a failed state and he was fortunate enough to witness or hear about an incident of bribery in Canada, that means we are not alone. Canada is also technically a failed state jare!
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Surprisingly, Patricia Etteh, the hairdresser, even offered perspectives that were intellectually superior to Bankole’s! Here is how NEXT puts it: “The immediate past Speaker, Patricia Etteh, who was contributing after a hiatus, admitted that it may be wrong to say the nation has failed, she, however, said it cannot ignore the emerging pointers to the fact it is a failing state. She added, "As a party person, I belong to the PDP. But I am sorry to say that the PDP, as a ruling party, cannot be watching while things are getting worse. We do not need to wait for the opposition to tell us what to do." Ms. Etteh cited concerns about the growing insecurity in the country and the political situation in Anambra State”
Etteh even tried, as we say in Naija English. And that is if you make allowances for the fact that she is making more sense than Bankole in the overall context of the embarrassing fact that what these loafers are debating is a tragic pointer to the intellectual shallowness of the House of Representatives. Pray, who are these people and how on earth did Nigeria get into the mess that threw such knuckleheads up as lawmakers, even within the backdrop of our farcical democracy? Who the heck do they think they are? How dare they waste our money and billable national hours debating trivia? So, the most urgent thing on the plate of our “Honourables” is to determine whether they agree with the view that Nigeria is a failed state or not! E gba mi o. What next will they do? Sponsor and pass a bill making it a felony for realistic Nigerians and the international community to call Nigeria a failed state? If our lawmakers want to be comedians, the least they could do is offer us intelligent and productive comedy.
And what was the last thing they were debating that made news prior to this latest nonsense? A possible immunity from prosecution bill for themselves! If Dimeji Bankole’s House has run out of ideas on what to do with the excess time they seem to have on their laps, here is a seven-point agenda for them to consider:
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1. Vigorously debate and shoot down their yeye immunity bill and sentence their colleague(s) in whose brain the idea of immunity germinated to twelve strokes of the cane.
2. Vigorously debate the futility of foreign trips and ban all foreign trips for one year by members of the House. Not even Ghana.
3. Vigorously debate and cancel some of those allowances they receive that amount to pure psychological warfare on Nigerians. I understand they have something nebulously called “inconvenience allowance”. They should start from there. That is an insult to Nigerians. In the context of the difficulties that Nigerians face, the very idea that people who are already overpaid for doing nothing even consider doing nothing an inconvenience that we must pay for is simply over the top.
4. Vigorously debate and pass a bill making it compulsory for the children of every lawmaker to attend primary school, secondary school, and university in Nigeria. Public schools. No private schools please.
5. Vigorously debate and pass a bill making it illegal for any member of the house to go on medical trips abroad.
6. Vigorously debate and pass a bill making it a felony to have a Ghana-must-go bag in your car trunk (booth) within a 100-mile radius of the National Assembly.
7. Vigorously debate and pass a bill making it compulsory for EVERY MEMBER of the House to wear a sash in the premises of the House with the inscription: “I apologize to the people of Nigeria for either rigging or buying the election that brought me here”.
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