SARAKI: A HERO OR VILLAIN?
If my memory serves me right, the Nigeria 8th Senate is less than one year and a month old but it has been enmeshed in series of controversies, scandals and political hullabaloo perhaps than any other Senate since the emergence of democratic government in 1999.It all started with leadership tussle when some Senators on the platform of the All Progressives Congress (APC) led by Senator Bukola Saraki connived with the opposition party: the People Democratic Party to throw away the wishes of the ruling party in whom become what in the Senate. Next to this is the shoddy manner and political intriguing that characterized the screening of the President Ministerial nominees. Equally, saddened scenario is the theatrical consideration of the 2016 budget in which new lexicons such as 'missing budget', 'budget padding', among others entered the Nigeria and Nigerians vocabulary. How about the official vehiclesgate?
One issue however has refused to go away among all the issues enumerated above, it is the issue of leadership as a result of the alleged forgery of Senate Rules (a sort of code of ethics that determines what a Senator and the Senate as an institution can do at any point in time). If the allegation is true, one wonder, why our leaders should be so desperate to serve to the extent of forging the rules of the Senate- national interests or personal interests?
The more I read about this episode and the controversy that has characterized it, the more nauseating it becomes to me especially when people make attempt to subsumed their personal interests for national interests. Indeed, some questions are begging for answers:
- Is / are there discrepancy or discrepancies between the 8th Senate Rules and the used 7th Senate Rules?
- If yes, at what point was amendment carried out?
- Who masterminded the amendment and who carried out the amendment?
- The last question is whether the Police and the Attorney General of the Federation have the capacity and right to investigate and or prosecute an alleged offence committed by members of the legislature since they belong to the executive if there should not be infraction of the principle of separation of power?
The doctrine of separation of power as enunciated by Baron de Montesquieu demands that those who make law should not execute it, and those who execute law should not interpret it. The fact however is that a clear cut application of doctrine of separation of power is not feasible in reality, hence its substitution with the doctrine of checks and balances which require that the three arms of government (the legislature, the executive, and the judiciary) should act as a watch-dog of one another by checkmating the excesses of each other.
One is therefore baffled when some senators decried the investigation of the forgery of the Senate House Rules by the Police and its eventual prosecution of the supposed perpetrators by the Attorney General on the altar of the doctrine of separation of power. If indeed the forgery case is established, then one wonder the level of desperation the so called leaders can go into for the purpose of assuming leadership position, all in the name of personal greed and interest.
Indeed, the clamour for the thrashing out of the case by some Senators and their followers in the name of the doctrine of separation of power befuddle a group of people who are intellectually lazy, politically inchoate, morally bankrupt, and self-serving rent-seekers. And sincerely methinks, Montesquieu must be grieving and mourning in his grave about the misinterpretation of his good intention by Nigerian politicians for self-aggrandizement.
To this extent, the statement credited to Senator Bukola Saraki that if he goes to jail because of defense of democracy will not only amount to self-serving but a desecration of the exalted Office of the Senate President; and for the record- time only will tell whether Senator Bukola Saraki will be remembered as a hero or a villain.
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