by Peter Ideal
The 10th National Assembly, which is made up of the House of Representatives and the Senate of the Federal Republic of Nigeria was inaugurated on the 13th of June 2023 following the 2023 General Elections and subsequent proclamation for the holding of the first session of the 10th Assembly issued by the President and Commander of the Armed Forces of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu in line with section 64(3) of the Nigerian 1999 constitution (as amended).
The world over, the legislature is recognised as the fulcrum of representative democracy, while the legislators who have been elected to represent the people are the touch-bearers expected to shoulder the responsibilities of articulating, aggregating and representing the interests and aspirations of their constituents through the instrumentality of lawmaking, oversight, representation, constituency service and other legislative interventions that would satisfy the needs of the people and ameliorate the existential suffering of the constituency members.
One year after the commencement of the 10th National Assembly, an empirical survey of Legislator’s performance across constituencies in Gombe state the North Parliamentary Watch Network, NEPWN has revealed an avalanche of poor legislative representation resulting in the outcry by constituents who are calling on their representatives and legislators to account for the huge financial provisions and large palliatives released by President Bola Ahmed Tinubu to lawmakers to help cushion the sufferings of their people. Of all constituencies surveyed in Gomber State, Kaltungo/Shongom Federal Constituency appears to be worse with less than 2% legislative productivity and a constituency impact index out of the 100% threshold.
Kaltungo/Shongom Federal Constituency, Gombe was known to have paraded some of the finest federal lawmakers including former Minority Whip, Hon Binta Bello, the amazon of the Green Chamber and most recently Hon. Dr Simon Karu whose high-level legislative sagacity and quality constituency services distinguished him as a representative per excellence in the 9th National Assembly.
Little wonder most of the constituency members who participated in the survey lauded the Hon. Binta Bello and Hon. Dr Simon Karu’s time in the National Assembly as the golden era of the constituency and prayed the duo could return to the National Assembly to rescue, redeem, and restore the glory days of quality representation for the good people of Kaltungo/Shongom Federal Constituency, Gombe State.
According to verified reports from empirical facts by NEPWN, Constituency members decried the unimaginable degree of poor representation that has befallen the constituency under Hon. Obed Paul Shehu who appears to be warming seats in the Green Chamber since June 2023 as if he escorted other legislators to the National Assembly despite the humongous generosity, financial and palliatives support, Mr President, Bola Ahmed Tinubu, GCFR have been giving the Federal Legislators for the support, succour and amelioration of the suffering of their constituency members.
“Bala Usman, a 37-year-old farmer from Awak, recounts the loss of era for support with farming essentials with the crop of these underperforming lawmakers. Similarly, Mr Habila Saul in Gwandum said, “We have had vibrant representatives at the National Assembly like the breed of Hon. Binta and Hon. Simon Karu, but what we have now is worse than a car without an engine.
It is a public record that since the inception of the 10th National Assembly, Mr President, Bola Ahmed Tinubu has provided financial support worth over N500Million Naira to each Member of the House of Representatives, about Two Trucks of Rice to tackle hunger and ensure food security of citizens. Similarly, the North East Development Commission also gave about three truckloads of Rice to each Member of the House of Representatives from the North East zone to help cushion the effect of hunger and support constituent members.
Unfortunately and to the surprise of the people of Kaltungo/Shongom Federal Constituency, Hon. Obed Paul is yet to make available to the people any of the funds and the truckloads of several palliatives advanced to the people through him, hence the reason for his poor performance ranking and thunderous demand that Hon Obed Paul to be held to account to provide all the palliatives and funds meant for the constituency’s development and household support in the last one year.
Perhaps, Matilda Amos a constituent from Kalarin best captured the pains of the good people of Kaltungo/Shongom Federal Constituency when she reported that “some few palliatives were distributed but most of it is still in anticipation and while the few money grants given came with exaggerated amounts on media most of the recipients were attacked and lost more valuables than what they collected and called their lawmaker to stop deceiving the people as the people are wiser.”
Mr. Maidawa, another constituent counselled currently political office holders especially Hon. Obed Paul on his poor performance and posited “this deceptive under-representation approach has not only caused pain but made fools of the public without any reasonable projects on the ground. We have never experienced such a level of poor representation since 1999 he recounted.
A further engagement with official parliamentary monitoring groups in the National Assembly revealed a worrisome situation as the poor legislative performance of Hon. Obed Paul was not only rooted in deceiving and diverting President Tinubu’s support to the people for private use and self-aggrandisement but also the fact that Kaltungo/Shongom Federal Constituency has completely lost her voice, visibility and respect in the National Assembly due to Hon Obed’s poor knowledge of legislative practices and procedures and inability to apply basic legislative instruments to provide quality and effective representation for people.
The survey report which adopted a mixed method approach shows that 98% of members of the Kaltungo/Shongom Federal Constituency agree that Hon. Obed Paul is the most under-performing lawmaker ever to represent the constituency, while state-level result shows that 90% of the respondents identified Hon. Obed Paul as the worst legislator from Gombe state. Whereas at the National Assembly (House of Representatives) level survey, Hon. Obed Paul, representing Kaltungo/Shongom Federal Constituency, Gombe state ranked 358 of 360 members in terms of poor representation and lack of knowledge of Legislative practices and procedures, poor contributions in the floor of the House, including poor productivity in bills and motions and general assessment of constituency representation using legislative productivity index matrice in line with Nigeria Parliamentary Monitoring Working Network, Inter-parliamentary Union (IPU) and Commonwealth Parliamentary Association (CPA) legislative scorecard toolkits.
In a fast-changing world of technology, and high-speed information with demand for more representation and accountability by constituents, legislators cannot no longer hide nor continue to deceive the Constituency Members while abandoning their core mandate of representing the interest of the people. Lawmakers in Nigeria are encouraged to focus attention on what matters to the people. The era of sit warmers in the National Assembly should not be tolerated by constituency members as the power of recall and to hire competent people still lies with the people in a constitutional democracy like Nigeria.
Peter Ideal writes from Shongom.
