PLAC Interns and their Colourful Legislative Assembly

PLAC Interns and their Colourful Legislative Assembly

By Abdulsalam Mahmud,

Despite the stereotyping of members of the National Assembly (NASS), I unmistakably cherish watching their plenaries. I am always hypnotized by the way some of our vibrant lawmakers debate bills presented, and motions raised on the floors of the red and green chambers.

How our senators or honourable members also raised their points of order, table petitions on behalf of their constituents and jocularly, seek the ‘protection’ of a presiding officer when their colleagues interject them abruptly, also intrigue me.

The ‘dramas’ occasionally staged by lawmakers at periods when tempers flare over the defection of their colleague(s) from Party A to B or from Party B to A; or over leadership tussle in either the Senate or House of Representatives, offers a comic relief. Recently, a Labour Party (LP) senator representing Anambra North in the upper chamber, Tony Nwoye, during a plenary yelled at Senator Godswill Akpabio, the President of the Senate, over a minority leadership post nomination.

According to Sen. Nwoye, it was unfair for Akpabio to singlehandedly choose leaders for their minority caucus. “Are we your slaves? Why would the senate president be picking leaders for us?” Nwoye yelled at the president of the senate. I also remember, with utter dismay, the ‘mace-snatching blockbuster’ of the 8th Senate. In April 2018, then suspended Senator Ovie Omo-Agege representing Delta Central, stormed the red chamber with suspected thugs and carted away its mace.

The shenanigans of some federal lawmakers have, over the years, attracted only scorn to the legislature. Former President Olusegun Obasanjo is one prominent Nigerian who derives ‘joy’ lampooning NASS. He once described it as an assemblage of looters and thieves. At a function in 2014, Obasanjo maintained that majority of the NASS members live above the law, in both misconduct and corruption.

Hence, they cannot, in good conscience, carry out oversight duties on any government ministry or department. “Apart from shrouding the remunerations of the National Assembly in opaqueness and without transparency, they indulge in extorting money from departments, contractors and ministries in two ways. Corruption in the National Assembly also includes what they call constituency projects which they give to their agents to execute but invariably, full payment is made with little or no job done”.

The toga of corruption hanging over the neck of our federal parliament, like the sword of Damocles, will be difficult to remove without breeding a crop of visionary lawmakers that will eschew graft and other irresponsible parliamentary conducts. However, the Policy and Legal Advocacy Centre (PLAC), an independent, non-partisan and non-profit capacity building organisation, is blazing the trail in offering sound legislative mentorship to young Nigerians.

Through its flagship ‘Legislative Internship Programme’, supported by the European Union in Nigeria (EUN), PLAC mentors 40 enterprising and high-flying Nigerian youths and graduates, yearly. The 10-week internship programme is under the EU Sustainable Development Goals Nigeria, SDGN project for young Nigerians who wish to gain knowledge of legislative practices and processes.

Last week Monday, PLAC organized a graduation ceremony and Model Legislative Assembly (MLA) plenary anchored by its 2023 legislative interns. Yours Truly was specially invited by one of the brilliant interns, Miss Sumayya Dauda Lamorde, who hails from Adamawa. But a contingency hindered my physical presence at the auspicious gathering. I however, followed the live proceedings via YouTube.

Sumayya, a second class (upper) mass communication graduate of Bayero University, Kano, (BUK) is a budding Gender-Based Violence (GBV) activist. The model assembly was a miniature House of Representatives, where the graduating interns held a mesmerizing plenary session at the Ladi Kwali Hall, in Abuja Continental Hotel.

Sumayya, my long-time acquaintance, played the role of a diligent sergeant-at-arms.
She was clad in a pale yellow suit, together with a black trouser and fitted black turban. With the mace gently placed on her right shoulder and held tightly, Sumayya heralded the plenary event with the shouting of, “Mr. Speaker”, as she led one of the interns, a young and light-skinned chap, who acted as the ‘Rt. Honourable Speaker’ of the model assembly, into the hallowed green chamber.

Other ‘honourable members’ trailed the sergeant-at-arms, Mr. Speaker and other principal officers of the make-believe assembly, into the plenary auditorium. After the members had taken their seats in the chamber, the Speaker administered both the oaths of office and allegiance to some ‘new lawmakers’, recently ‘declared as the rightly elected members’ of their federal constituencies, by the ‘Court of Appeal’.

One of the interns, Hon. Racheal Daniel Pele, representing Andoni/Opobo/Nkoro Federal Constituency of Rivers State, came under Order 8, Rule 4 of the House Standing Orders on matters of urgent public importance, to draw government’s attention to the urgent need to investigate the unfortunate accidental bombing of Tudun Biri community in Igabi local government area of Kaduna State, recently.

“The House note with dismay the unfortunate incident that led to the death of over 85 persons and several others injured. As a parliament, we are worried that this will further weaken the trust in the capacity of our security agencies to protect life and property,” she said. A minute silence was thereafter observed by the young legislators to honour the departed souls. They called on the Nigerian army to probe the incident in order to avert a recurrence.

However, before the matter of urgent public importance would be adopted, one of the model Reps’ members amended its prayers. He sought that the House dispatches a high-powered delegation to the Kaduna community to commiserate with the victims. He also pleaded that the lawmakers’ December salaries be donated to those affected in the tragic incident.

It was then the turn of the House Majority Leader, a female, to introduce four bills. After the house leader’s introduction, the Clerk of the House thereafter read the short titles of the bills. There was also the presentation of a report by the Committee on Education (Basic and Secondary) on the need for an Act to institutionalize school feeding programme for indigent students in all public primary and secondary schools in the Federal Republic of Nigeria.

A bill for an Act to amend the compulsory free Universal Basic Education Act to extend coverage to senior secondary school education, among other related matters, was read for the third time, and subsequently passed by the model assembly. The youthful lawmakers also debated the proposed amendment of the Electoral Act to mandate compulsory transmission of Polling Units’ results and strengthening the powers of the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, among other related matters.

Two other ‘honourable members’ raised a motion to curb the menace of ‘One Chance’ robbery in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), and a motion to enforce traffic regulation and curb the misuse of sirens in Nigeria. As I savour the enchanting plenary of the PLAC internship cohorts, I was pleased with the good works PLAC itself performed on the interns, with regards to imparting them (the interns) with sound legislative knowledge and practical skills of law making and policy formulation.

The cohorts should count themselves lucky to be beneficiaries of a robust legislative internship, geared towards horning their lawmaking, together with policy design and implementation skills. The PLAC programme is one that has opened their eyes to the basic rudiments of quality legislation.

Hopefully, the experiences they have gained in the last two and a half months will shape them into future distinguished senators and honourable members that will demonstrate sheer patriotism and an abiding fidelity to making only good laws, that will better the lots of the masses, while also advancing the cause of a prosperous Nigeria.

Mahmud is the Deputy Editor of PRNigeria, and wrote in via: [email protected].