Nigeria: That Finance Minister and House Committee Meeting

The video showing the beginning of the proceedings before the committee. 

Courtesy of Premium Times. The news story.

The video that sensationalised the proceedings and attracted much commentary. 

Courtesy of Channels TV.

Update

These are two additional video Courtesy of Channels TV where the Chairman of the House Committee on Finance was interviewed.

   
Part 1

Part 2

For the time he was allowed to talk beyond the biased obstreperous interviewing technique of Harriet Agbenyi, a better picture of the reasonableness of the committee to the unreasonableness of the Finance Minister playing to the gallery exploiting the subjectiveness of Nigerians is evident.

Videos unlimited

When the second video was released in December, many jumped on it and excoriated the chairman of the House of Representatives Committee on Finance, Dr. Abdulmumin Jibrin for disrespecting the honourable Federal Minister of Finance, Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala.

Whoever stitched together the second video was no doubt up for mischief and enough mischief was wrought by it. However, from the get-go, I was of the opinion that the Minister was haughty, wrong and troublesome, whilst the committee gave all due consideration before they came to the ruling that she should leave to return on another day.

This new video [The topmost one on this blog] corroborates my views, and I hope that viewers of both videos [The first showing the beginning of the engagement and the second showing how it ended.] which offers a more complete view of that engagement would review and reflect dispassionately and without sentiment.

Once we extricate ourselves from the gender and age politics, yes, the Minister is female and 22 years older than the Chairman, which could mean a lot in the Nigerian setting, and concentrate on institutions, process and procedure, we would be better informed of the fundamental issues.

The synopsis

The Minister was invited to appear before the House Committee, she was given the floor and with excuse seeking pity and whatever else, she said she was very ill, implied her colleagues might be fatigued, for they had not slept for days and offered to tackle the questions from the Committee almost half-heartedly because of her condition.

The committee sympathetically considered her condition, gave her the questions they were to ask her and advised her with all due courtesy to return at another time, two weeks hence.

The Minister took umbrage at this and questioned process and decorum of the Committee as the Chairman containing his exasperation and possible anger, told her she cannot face a gruelling grilling by the committee in her condition.

This after earlier letting her know that the Committee was as flexible as to make the maximum allowances for understanding that the Minister’s health was paramount, and they would have postponed in consideration of that.

The exchanges degenerated, the Committee ruled, the gavel came down, the session should have ended there and then but the camera kept rolling and that was theatre for Nigerians.

Separation of Powers

Broadly, we have a system of government in Nigeria that practices Baron de Montesquieu's theory of the separation of powers. An Executive presidency with a cabinet of ministers, a National Assembly – the Legislature comprised of the Senate and the House of Representative and the Judiciary.

Again, somewhere between the theory and the practice, the Legislature has oversight of the government and has powers into invite or summons the Executive about issues relating to governance, budgets and much else. The graphic below captures the general idea of what we should expect of the arms of government.

Source Wikipedia.

Now the event

That lays the groundwork into the how and the why of the Minister appearing before a committee of the House of Representatives.

As far as the video is concerned, the Minister was late in appearing before the committee, that is the first slight and show of disrespect to the House Committee that the Chairman overlooked without comment, and the Minister did not apologise for.

Then when the Minister was given the floor to speak, rather than address the serious matters of the days head-on, she had a more important human limitation, she was unwell and her colleagues were seriously fatigued, she would do her best, but implicitly, the Committee should have consideration and not grill her, or words to that effect.

Open book test

The Chairman, by observation decided that the gruelling activity of appearing before the committee should not be taken lightly, they had prepared 50 questions already, but seeing the condition of the Minister, the committee was willing to let her attend to getting well.

Meanwhile, here was an open-book test, take the 50 questions away, answer them and the Committee would invite you at a later date to discuss.

At which point the Minister for whatever reason contemned and impugned the Committee about orderly and respect, as she perked up, she was suddenly well, ready and able to face the Committee.

After the gavel

The Committee Chairman, overruled her, made a ruling and the gavel came down. The Minister should have packed her sheaves of paper and left because the session was at that time over, the Chairman said as much to her but she laid into the committee, suggested she had been disrespected and much else.

In my view, if we are to have strong institutions in Nigeria, it is important that all arms of government appreciate where they stand in the scheme of things. The Minister of the head of her ministry but answers to the legislature on matters concerning her ministry.

In that setting, the committee orders the proceedings and whoever appears before the committee should clearly respect and submit to the primacy of the committee in their deliberations, decisions and rulings.

Once the gavel came down, there was nothing else to discuss, the manner in which the gavel came down of no consequence, the reason why the gavel exists in the committee room is to maintain order, in process, proceedings and rulings. End of story – the rest is idle banter.

This uppity minister

That the minister decided to escalate the matter into a histrionic fit as depicted in that video is unfortunate and the chairman did well to make her understand that she cannot countermand the ruling of the committee.

In the process, it appeared the Minister was badly treated, but when we watch both videos, it is clear that the Minister simply pushed the matter to the point where it degenerated to – that sadly defines the unfortunate mess of a jumble of separation of powers we operating in Nigeria.

I stand by my original premise, Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala in that setting was unprepared, uncouth, rude, wrong, ill-disciplined, ill-tempered, melodramatic and disrespectful, and all that as someone unwell.

That the executive when appearing before the legislature had to be handled in that way is order that has grown into a storm in a teacup – the committee prevailed, just as it should, anywhere that system of government exists in the world.

Nigeria: Splitting hairs on Senate funding

The intent is clear

This is an update to the blog I wrote yesterday about the directive of the Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF) advising Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDA) about providing funds to other organs of government which should for their purposes be fully-funded for their activities.

In what is looking like splitting hairs, the spokesperson of the Nigerian Senate is now trying to interpret that message and achieve an understanding that is clearly not the intent of the SGF.

Live within your means

The fundamental principle simply is, every organ of government should be fully funded or prudently manage their budget to facilitate whatever activities they need to carry out within the law and their legal remits.

If that organ of government does not have sufficient funds, it should apply to its line of management to secure sufficient funds or can the proposed activity – it is a commonsense idea of living within your means.

Conflicts of interest

The National Assembly serves the dual purpose of enacting laws and providing oversight; to fulfil all righteousness in carrying out its duties, it should clearly be financially and structurally independent of the other arms of government.

Regardless of rules of engagement, it is only proper and ethical to avoid situations where the slightest influence can be leveraged through MDAs facilitating or offering funds to the legislative organs of government.

In fact, it is disingenuous of the Senate to expect that MDAs sponsor or facilitate so-called capacity building exercises which are to ensure the Senate delivers on its constitutionally authorised duties of oversight.

There are too many avenues for abuse if the budgets of any of the Senate committees are not completely under the purview of the Senate administration.

Maturing into an example democracy

Regardless of examples the Senate portends to happen in other legislatures in the world, the concept of facilitation should strictly be the availability of personnel, information and access to whatever is needed to ensure the legislature has all the detail necessary to reach the right conclusions for government.

Nobody would be against that, the monetary aspect should be completely off the table, if only to protect the fragile state of our democracy that is still trying to mature into one that fully recognises the rule of law and the principle of separation of powers.

Nigeria runs a presidential system of government, the government should not then allow for obfuscation that makes it appear it is running parliamentary system – the separation of powers including funding for facilitation must be sacrosanct.

Clear intent

I think the clear intent of the SGF was to prevent budgets within the Executive being imprudently disbursed to organs outside its control; this would definitely include the legislature and the judiciary.

Each organ has a job to do, if they cannot get their jobs done due to insufficient funding, the planners need to review their projections and make contingencies for unexpected circumstances – the law should clearly require that MDAs have no right to pass moneys out to the National Assembly.

There should be no debate on that matter at all.

Nigeria: A National Assembly fudge

It is a fudge

It is a fudge, if I ever saw one with influence peddling gaining the upper hand over a straight-forward legislative process.

The ex-President Olusegun Obasanjo was supposed to appear before the House of Representatives Committee on Power and Steel yesterday to answer questions which he did not.

Apparently, the ex-President had prepared a presentation and sent a letter through his Special Assistant stating that he was slightly indisposed after preparing the presentation and hoped that his presentation would suffice without holding up the committee in its work.

The ex-President had earlier agreed to appear before the committee but some advisors prevailed upon him to wield status, demand privileges and consequently he questioned the manner of the invitation and never appeared.

Refusal precedes withdrawal

In what is quickly becoming a farce, the committee then withdrew the invitation, but this was after the invited had failed to appear – so where they should have flexed muscle as a constitutionally constituted organ with the mien to invite any Nigerian citizen to a sitting, they caved in to pandering and compromises that in my view has diminished the standing of the legislature.

Like I noted yesterday, the Nigerian Bar Association had said the invitation was exercised within the legal remit of the legislature, that is, the committee can invite any citizen; an ex-President is a citizen first and then any other dignities and achievement are beside the point of being first a citizen.

Who is the President today?

There might however be a case for preserving the mystique of the office of the President, as the report indicated; the withdrawal was to avoid desecrating the office of the President.

One would think the office the President is the preserve of the incumbent rather than previous holders, else that would mean a perverse order of precedence exists that places ex-Presidents above the law and possibly beyond the survey of the incumbent.

The question then becomes; who is an ex-President answerable to?

I cannot believe that ex-President Obasanjo is being accorded these courtesies when he himself does not accord the President any courtesy – I noted at a gathering to honour the elder brother of the President (Shehu Yar’Adua), ex-President Obasanjo singularly and prominently did not rise for the President when he took the podium.

A quoted source says, “It is not about Obasanjo. It is about the office and stature of a former president of this country. It would set a bad president (sic) [precedent – ThisDay try proofreading your copy] to put him in the dock at the National Assembly and subject him to the kind of questioning that former ministers have been subjected to in the last few months nothing has changed on the investigations, but something has changed in the way the matter will be approached.”

An untenable situation developing

In my view, this elevates intransigence and truculence to a subjective variable that now has prominence when men fear to stand in the power of their office to seek the truth in the name of Nigerians.

The ex-President would not now appear in the chambers of the National Assembly but he would be interviewed in private – it offers unprecedented latitude for the ex-President to dictate the whole proceedings.

He can refuse to provide evidence or answers under oath, he can require none of the proceedings be on record and he can decide he has no further time for the legislature.

In fact, when he was President he showed scant regard for the separation of powers and this attitude seems to have followed him out of office.

In the end, I am disappointed by the way our democracy has been subsumed to the cult of personality, regardless of the protestations of the quoted source – if an ex-President can be selective about giving account for his tenure of office, we have potentates that would continue to riddle Nigeria with bad governance and get away with it.

It does not augur well at all.