Hypocritical loyalty spiced with greed and lack of the necessary exposure to be in the legislature, are factors that transformed the 10th National Assembly to a megaphone of the Executive arm of Government.
When the detailed account on how democracy was betrayed by the political parties since 1999 would be documented, the 10th National Assembly will occupy a prominent place among the opprobrious.
That an institution on the deck of which democracy’s resilient spirit was anchored would totally abdicate its responsibility to the citizens and the state, and prefer to subordinate itself to the executive arm, remains a part of the calamity of the period in reference.
If the legislative arm at the national level has never thrived on an elevated pedestal of independence, the total capitulation of the 10th National Assembly would not have been as pathetic and reprehensive. But the National Assembly has had some decent outing in the past. Even under the APC regime, but for the forgettable leadership of Sen. Ahmed Ibrahim Lawan, when the legislature can point at some decent past.
Yes, the executive arm is often identified with overbearing tendencies, but the duty is that of the legislature to defend its turf. The executive cannot be said to have forced elected representatives of the people to burst into strange songs of loyalty at the mere appearance of the head of the executive arm. On Your Mandate We Shall Stand! That’s an elevation of sycophancy spiced with docility.
The indictment of the 10th National Assembly does not derive only from the grievous fact that it sinned. Deserving no less condemnation is the bitter truth that is set an inglorious template in diffidence which legislative houses across the states hurriedly copied as working tools.
As virtually all State Houses of Assembly succumbed in the last 15 years to the whims of their respective State Governors without a whimper, democracy in Nigeria became anything but that. Across the states, the governors reigned as small emperors in their respective domains, all with temperament that accommodates no alternative views. At the national level, the president reigns as a peculiar potentate, a personage that is different things at all times, a master strategist extraordinaire, a demigod, a commander-in-chief, an unchallengeable dispenser of the national wealth and a law unto himself. A complaisant National Assembly pledges unsolicited allegiance to the executive and conveniently looks away. Some say they had been settled to be morons and docile. That may be so.
As it has turned out, the legislators have not only abandoned the people who look up to them to speak out as their representatives. They have also abandoned themselves to loitering spree. Very little which the legislature ought to do for the society and for itself appears to have been done, not in the last three turbulent years. They did not vet or improve on the annual budgets presented to them.
They hardly interrogate nor turn down any nominee sent to them for screening, except anyone which the nominating authority was not committed to appointing in the first place.
The legislators never rejected any request for borrowing from the executive. And they dare not question any policy of the executive, whether at the federal or in the states. The phrase rubber stamp fits so tightly.
Now, few months to the end of their adventurous tenure, belated groans are being heard from the legislative chambers, bemoaning their own acts of negligence and abdication.
The House of Representatives woke up recently to cry out over a circular from the executive arm restricting the legislature from embarking on foreign trips without the approval of the executive. Deliberating on the motion, “Need to Safeguard the Constitutional Independence of the Legislature as a Distinctive Arm of Government from the Executive Control on Official Foreign Travel,” the members of the House decried the implication of the circular.
They subsequently and reluctantly, passed a resolution to further pursue their disapproval of the circular. In the deliberation on the motion on the floor of the House of Representatives, very interesting phrases and concepts were thrown-up. Some talked about “parliamentary independence.” Others spoke of “respect for the doctrine of separation of powers as enshrined in the 1999 Constitution (as amended).” Yet others talked about “mutual respect between the three arms of government.” It was puzzling, if not piteous hearing the cries of affliction by the legislators in the evening of their tenure.
Perhaps, nothing captured the bizarreness of the new awakening at the House of Representatives on the need for “respect for the doctrine of separation of powers” more than the time it took for the legislators to wake up from slumber and docility. While the belated awakening by way of the motion and the deliberations on the matter came up at the House in the third week of October 2026, the circular in question was issued by the Office of the Secretary to the Government of the Federation (OSGF) on August 13, 2026.
The issue here is not the propriety or otherwise of the executive arm unilaterally directing that the legislature must obtain approval from it before embarking on official foreign trips. There are ample reasons for, and against the directive. An entirely different approach, certainly more regardful would have been adopted by the executive arm on the matter had the legislative arm not capitulated and made itself a forlorn outpost of the executive arm.
A legislative arm that sold itself to the executive arm for a pittance, virtually, and could not even demand for respect, cannot wake up late in the day to start bandying such self-undermined concept as the doctrine of separation of power. Which powers are separated at the dying minute? In their new awakening, the House of Representatives copiously quoted sections of the Constitution which established that the Legislature, Executive and Judiciary are distinct arms of the government. They informed themselves, obviously, that “the National Assembly is an independent arm of government and should not be treated as a federal Ministry, Department, Agency or subordinate institution of the Executive.”
But my dear Honorable members, let’s shudder to think, is it at this dying minute of your exit you are raising your voice to be heard, and, for whose ears? Is it now that you know of the existence of separation of powers enshrined in the Constitution that you failed to respect in your own favor all these years? Are you not late in reasoning? Why are you not talking of your denied constituency projects that has been put on hold and refused the light of the day for years? Why didn’t you shout and resist the imposition of your leaders at inauguration in June 2023? Why did you accept the imposition of your leaders by the executive, instead of exercising your franchise by electing your leaders through due process? Were you expecting a smooth drive with an imposed leadership by the executive? You are truly waking up from slumber at the odd hour of your tenure. The 11th National Assembly may learn from your horrible experience and resist imposition of leaders that may be stooges of the executive.
You had credible contestants for the Speakership position in 2023 that could have brought you honor and respect, but you refused to see reason. Instead, you sheepishly danced to the drum beats of the executive that had a hidden agenda against robust legislation. You have now realized at the exit door what the executive considers you to be. Not a mere rubber stamp but an agency under the control of executive that receives directives on what to do, and not to do. That’s the consequence of docility and sycophancy!
But, I still salute your courage for even gathering the courage to raise your voice at this material time. Nigerians are waiting to hear from the judiciary for their own side on the same separation of powers and financial autonomy if they desire. But I don’t blame the executive for the treatment. You denied yourselves, your constitutional right from the onset. You have no justification of raising any cracked voice at your exit hour.I come in Peace!
Muhammad is a commentator on national issues
