THE Senate Leader, Ali Ndume, has been leading other senators in defence of the resolve to buy 110 Toyota Land-cruiser Sport Utility Vehicles at about N20 million each as official vehicles for senators despite the crunch economic times facing the country. But the public rage against this means nothing to Ndume, Aliyu Abdullahi, Gbenga Ashafa, Kabiru Gaya, among other senators, who, in recent newspaper and television interviews, said they were not prepared to let go of some unwholesome privileges. This is certainly how not to be the people’s representatives.
Since President Muhammadu Buhari also frowned upon the plan, the senators have fanned out to rationalise the design. The Senate spokesman, Abdullahi, said the SUVs “are purchased for the use of committees.” Deceptively, they tagged them “pool cars” for the 65 committees. Vehicles acquired by the Seventh Senate under the same guise were “sold” to them at give-away prices at the expiration of their tenure. Ashafa’s view that for the parliament to “do a very serious oversight,” providing senators with official cars, which he considered as “minor things,” were not negotiable, missed the point. They enjoyed this same privilege in the past, yet with dismal results.
Under the Federal Government’s monetisation policy, public officers are paid allowances. Instructively, the lawmakers used their privileged positions to secure N8.105 million car loans, for which they receive N1,519,800 annual fuel and maintenance allowances. They are expected to use these for official assignments.
It is obvious that lawmakers on oversight duties visit to Ministries, Departments and Agencies in Abuja do so most of the time with air-conditioned posh buses belonging to committees or the National Assembly. These Toyota Coaster buses and their cars should be enough. The logic that it is an infra-dignity for a lawmaker to drive a four-year-old car used by his immediate predecessor as the senators purveyed is quite absurd. They are reminded of the President’s rejection of plans to purchase five brand new customised armoured Mercedes S-600 limousines valued at N400 million for him on assumption of office. He preferred instead, to use the cars his predecessor, Goodluck Jonathan, had used. This is exactly what the time calls for.
If the senators are not haunted by The Economist of London’s report in 2013 that Nigerian lawmakers were the highest paid in the world, they should be worried about dwindling public revenues forcing the federal and some 27 states to default in paying salaries and allowances. The inconsiderate desire to sustain their ostentatious lifestyle with taxpayers’ money is at odds with the abject privation most Nigerians face daily. It does not earn them any respect.
Many of the lawmakers have been part of the ugly narrative of committees’ oversight since 1999 – a complete failure. And this is why governance also collapsed on their watch. The Senate President, Bukola Saraki, re-echoed this recently when he told his colleagues that the Sambo Dasuki $2.1 billion arms scandal called into question their parliamentary oversight. David Mark, his predecessor, had passed a similar verdict in 2013 when a report from its Public Accounts Committee detailed how government officials raided the N1.5 trillion Special Funds. “That is truly an indictment on the National Assembly,” Mark had said.
Everything should be done to turn our profligate, but lapdog parliament back to a watchdog. Public officials’ mania for materialism at taxpayer’s expense must stop.
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