Rubber Stamp Assemblies: Dogara urges 10th Assembly to alter Constitution

From Paul Orude bauchi

Former Speaker of the House of Assembly Yakubu Dogara has said that the “complete hostile takeover” of National and State Houses of Assembly by the executive is an indication of bad leadership.

Dogara made the observation in a paper delivered at a one-day technical session for Speakers of State Houses of Assembly by, organized by PERL-ECP in collaboration with the Conference of Speakers held at Transcorp Hilton, Abuja.

He said most governors lack leadership capacity and required character to guide and influence the State Houses of Assemly as a group of individual lawmakers toward delivering on common institutional or organisational goals.

Dogara believed that a President or a governor who is a true leader must be curious, seek out new knowledge, and cultivate empathy.

“A true leader builds strong relationships with members, understanding their strengths, weaknesses, and values to lead with authenticity,” he argued.

“He must be open minded and leverage professional development opportunities to improve leadership skills”

He opined that it is the fight by the executive to upset legislative processes at both the National and State levels that confronts a legislative leader in Nigeria.

The former Speaker who represented Bogoro/Tafawa Balewa/ Dass federal constituency, argued that President and governors often turned the legislatre are to their appendages because lawmakers have become willing tools.

“The fact that members also are ever ready to make themselves willing tools of the executive manifests in their inability to work collectively in order to defend the integrity of the institution,” he stated.

“It is not uncommon for Individual legislators to abandon fidelity to their oaths for pecuniary reasons or in order to procure executive patronage or key appointments in governments for themselves and their lackeys.

“This unholy collaboration between members and the executive against the institution erodes legislative independence, turning the legislature into an appendage of the executive or at best a junior partner of the executive.

“Also to blame is our leadership recruitment process.

“Governors virtually hand over party platforms to would be legislators at all levels and in most cases bankroll their campaign expenses.

“Since most, if not all Governors prize loyalty above competence, party tickets are allocated in nearly all cases to those with no capacity for independent thought and action.

“The executive at all levels in Nigeria have retained the capacity to impose their choices on the legislatures as leaders and in most cases supplant political parties to fill minority leadership positions in the legislature.

“We are now living witnesses to the complete hostile takeover of our legislatures by the executive”

Dogara who believes that opportunities are available to current legislatures for a departure, charged the the 10th Assembly at all levels to be courageous and defend Nigeria’s democracy.

“Since the bane of our legislatures has been an overbearing executive at all level resulting into a situation where the executive will do as it will while the legislatures must do as they must, you must summon the courage to end this scourge that has crippled our democracy,” he charged.

“In order to put a stop to constant harassment of the legislature by the executive, I recommend that you rejig our laws to create the office of the Independent Counsel at both national and sub-national levels as obtains in the US”

Dogara admonished the leadership of the 10^th Assembly at all levels to end executive quest to dominate, subjugate, emasculate and humiliate the legislature by altering Sections 143 and 188 of the 1999 Constitution in order to make impeachment of heads of the executive at state and national levels.

He opined that impeachment must be served to, “Those who will not maintain fidelity to their oaths of office, especially those who specialize in attacking democratic institutions or screening those that are procured to attack them, more probable than likely”