9th NASS: Sinators, horribles and an old peoples’ home! - Ik Muo, PhD, FCIB.

9th NASS: Sinators, horribles and an old peoples’ home!

Ik Muo, PhD, FCIB. Department of Business Administration, OOU, Ago-Iwoye 08033026625, muo.ik@oouagoiwoye.edu.ng

The elections are almost over; almost, because the various courts and tribunals are still in their business of the real ‘voting’. That is after we, the voters, had been given the impression that we voted, that our votes would be counted and that the counted votes would count! If you doubt this assertion,  find out from INEC how many Certificates of Return( COR) have been voided, transferred or withheld in the bullish COR Exchange! But life is going on and the governance space appears calm. Earlier this week (precisely on 5/8/19), I asked townsman who has lived in Benin for as long as I have known him, (which is more than 40 year),  how they were ‘managing’, especially with the Assembly crises and he replied: ‘that one does not concern me but how can Oshiomhole who boasted  about how he  destroyed  and humiliated the god fathers now comeback to play a godfather?. I digressed but seriously, no be me talk am!

 The 9^th NASS has settled down to business and this time around, it is real business as a group of 90  men and women divided themselves into 69 STANDING committees, an average membership of 1.3!( I hope I won’t catch them sitting in their standing committees!). In effect, every member is a chairperson  or  deputy chairperson of a committee, with the usually opaque perquisites of office. You are aware that they do not have official cars but that does not preclude  SUVs for legislative oversight, which every chairperson and the deputy is entitled to. The house fared better as the 360 members set up just 109 committees( upped from the 96 in the last house) giving an average of 3.3members per committee. Meanwhile, the US 115^th Congress had 20 standing committees for their 100 senators. But that is the US; after all PMB had advised us to look for home-grown solutions to domestic challenges. This over-bloated committee-ship is the NASS’s approach to domesticating the solutions to our challenges!

One of the beneficiaries, and public faces of the not too young to run movement, is the dashing  and impeccably dressed Senator Abbo, the youngest Senator in Nigeria today. And he started his legislative oversight, even before the NASS was inaugurated and long before committees were set up, in an ‘adult shop’ at Abuja where he brutalized the shopkeeper and her friend who asked him to take things easy. Don’t ask me what he went to do at the sex-toy shop where he was described as a regular customer or even why he was there when he already had enough female company( three of them!). Anyway, I belong to the old-school group, I must confess that I don’t understand how these things work.

This story threw the nation into a rage. The senate and PDP set up investigative committees, there were condemnations from even conservative quarters and some protest marches at Abuja and elsewhere.

He attempted to deny the story,  and then offered an open plea for specific and general forgiveness ‘with a deep sense of remorse and responsibility’. He was invited for a chat by the police, a chat that lasted more than one night and he ended up in court where as usual, he pleaded not guilty. These lawyers and courts sef! Somebody was caught in the very act (courtesy, the limitless powers of ICT) of assault and battery; he admitted same and offered a public apology and he had the temerity to plead non-est factum at a court and the court accepted the plea? That is why  I would not have been a good lawyer or a judge because I would have added the charge of public lying on his head. And as usual with  Nigerian matters, everything about the ‘violent  senator’ is off the radar! Where are the protesters? What are the reports of the Senate and PDP committees? And by the way, which committee is the adult-shop senator chairing? The committee on law and order or police affairs? By the way, I commiserate with Senator Abbo on the brutal invasion of his family house, murder of his uncle and kidnap of his stepmother on 13/7/19. In Nigeria, we have criminals incorporated operating openly and brazenly as bandits, (Fulani) herdsmen, Boko haram, kidnappers and political thugs. The most important thing is that they are all criminals. This incidence and several others, indicate that the rich and powerful also cry! ( continues)

Other Matters: Where is Demola, the Chief Thug of Okota?

During the last elections, Okota, a suburb of Lagos, received global attention and unfortunately, for the wrong reason. Before the elections, our dear democratic President had  made the snatch ballot boxes and die declaration.  During the national elections at Okota, one fellow went beyond the snatching of ballot boxes; he coolly set the ballots on fire, terrorized the voters and electoral officers in the very before of helpless and hapless policemen! As fate would have it, he received a taste of his own medicine as a mob, probably those whom he had terrorized, attacked and left him for dead.  By an act of God, he survived the onslaught, after he had seen that nobody has the monopoly of violence. Methinks the God of second chance decided to give him another chance. And now, 5 months after the elections I ask: where is Demola? I am asking this question from two angles. In the first instance, what has he been up to since then as regards his usual occupation as a merchant of violence; how has his near-death experience affected his attitude to unleashing mayhem on others? And then the main question: what has the police and other appropriate authorities done about this open-case electoral violence? This is not the case of an unknown soldier because the thug was arrested by the spirits, acting through the mob. And I know that there are laws on general violence and electoral violence. So, WHERE IS DEMOLA?

The last I heard of him was the declaration by Lagos Commissioner of Police, Zubairu Muazu, that he would be arrested and prosecuted and ‘treated as a principal suspect and will assist to arrest other members of his gang’ That was more than 5 months ago, precisely on 28/2/19. So, I ask once more: WHERE IS DEMOLA THE THUG?