Senator Sunday Karimi was the National Assembly’s man in the news last week. He gave a press conference to push a stout defence of the Senate’s decision to buy Land Cruiser jeeps for its members. Aside from that, he also co-sponsored a bill for the amendment of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) governing Act to address noticeable excesses of the immediate past holder of that office.
As chairman, of the Senate Services Committee, Senator Karimi’s popularity is guaranteed because he oversees welfare matters, otherwise called ways and means. So aside from the Presiding officers, the next man, whose name is permanently on the lips of lawmakers is the Chairman of the Services Committee.
Before coming to the Senate to replace his friend, Senator Smart Adeyemi, who occupied the Kogi West Senatorial seat in the 9th Assembly, Karimi was a ranking member of the House of Representatives. So he is well abreast of the issue he brought before the media.
The press briefing he undertook on Tuesday last week was aimed at dousing the spate of attacks on the lawmakers as a result of their decision to buy Sport Utility Vehicles (SUVs) as official cars. In his defence, Karimi accused the public of singling out the lawmakers for scathing criticisms, while leaving out ministers and members of the executive arm of government; he forgot to add the judiciary, who are equally guilty of the same offence.
His defence reminds one of the music of Fela Anikulapo-Kuti, who in Authority Stealing sang thus:
You be thief (I no be thief)/You be rogue (I no be rogue)
You dey steal (I no dey steal)/You be robber (I no be robber)
You be armed robber (No be armed robber)
I no be thief /(You be thief)/I no be rogue (You be rogue)
I no dey steal (You dey steal)/I no be robber (You be robber)
I no be armed robber (You be armed robber)…
[Chorus] Argument, argument!/Argument, argument, argue
Them argue/Everbody dem argue…
Argument about stealing/Somebody don take something
Wey belong to another person
Then you go hear: You be thief (I no be thief)…
According to Karimi: “Somebody that is a minister has more than three Land Cruisers, Prado, and other vehicles and you are not asking them questions, why us?
“These vehicles that you see go to Nigerian roads today, If I go home once, to my senatorial district, I come back spending a lot on my vehicles because our roads are bad.
“I said the decision that we took on using Land Cruiser is based on due diligence. Our procurement department did a comparative cost analysis before arriving at the decision. We also look at durability of the vehicles…”
As simplistic and possibly self-serving as Karimi’s position may look, he appears to be making some point, though. In most climes, the parliament is not a friend of the people, so whatever excuse they put up on any issue, will most certainly only enter through the left ear and escape through the right.
Since the days of President Olusegun Obasanjo, when scandals such as anticipated approvals, flower planting/cutting, ‘Ghana must go’ and furniture allowance had soiled the image of the lawmakers, it has become established that whatever case the parliamentarians bring to the court of public opinion is guaranteed of a guilty verdict or certified dead on arrival (BID) as doctors would say.
Even though the court will certainly not grant parole to anyone who simply pleads that he is not the only thief, I think that Karimi’s pleadings on behalf of his colleagues in the National Assembly should draw a closer look at this perennial issue of vehicle purchase in the National Assembly. It would look like as we point one accusing finger at the lawmakers, the remaining four are pointing to the other arms of government, who purchase bigger and better volumes and versions of such luxury vehicles.
The story for me should be a holistic cleansing. As we complain about the amount and volume of vehicles being deployed for the use of lawmakers, we should do the same to the President, the Vice President, the SGF, Ministers, Permanent Secretaries, Directors-General, Executive Secretaries, directors, and deputy directors in the Ministries, Departments, and Agencies.
Can we ask for instance how many such vehicles are purchased yearly by agencies like Customs, FIRS, Immigrations, NSCDC, the military, and others? Have we quantified how much capital flight contributes to our economy on an annual basis?
In the 6th National Assembly which ran its course between 2007 and 2011, I did some extensive stories on the alleged N800 million scandal that rocked the House of Representatives on the purchase of vehicles for the lawmakers of the session. Even after that, each session of the National Assembly has faced question marks on the purchase of operational vehicles for its members. It shows that a problem really exists in that regard and there is the need to ‘put heads together,’ as elders would say, to iron out a win-win situation.
It was interesting that only the House of Representatives landed in hot soup as a result of the purchase of cars in the 6th Assembly. This was because the Senate was clever about its business that year. The Senate under Senator David Mark had gone ahead to create 56 Standing Committees and declared that two operational vehicles would be purchased for each committee to take care of the chairman and the vice. There are 109 Senators in the chamber and with 56 committees, every senator is either a chairman or a vice. That Senate had carefully interpreted the monetisation policy and ensured that it suited the purpose. That policy has it that the Federal Government will only purchase “operational vehicles” (not official vehicles) for the use of its officials.
When the human rights bodies and the civil society groups started railing against the 10th House of Representatives, which was the first to release its intention to buy official vehicles, and then the Senate, I said to myself, this abiku issue has come again. The questions out there are germane: Why should our lawmakers be spending billions of Naira to purchase luxury cars for themselves even as the nation’s economy is heading south? Why are they not patronising locally assembled vehicles?
Some would add that most of these lawmakers are believed to be well-to-do, so why buy vehicles for them?
The above questions only point to more fundamental questions about the operation of democracy and the existence of the legislature. We need to ask whether the country is ready to operate a democracy, especially the type fashioned after that of the United States of America. What is the design of the parliament we want to operate and what should be the character sketch of the lawmakers? Granted that the legislature symbolises democracy, you cannot be said to practice democracy without a house or parliament. In that case, the nation must come to terms with the size of resources it can afford to manage its parliament.
Incidentally, that conclusion cannot be reached in isolation. The same questions must also be asked about the executive and its bodies as well as the judicial arm of government.
