NigeriansTalk

No respect for the lawmaker

Some­times I won­der why delib­er­a­tions between law­mak­ers never get accorded any recog­ni­tion of sophis­ti­ca­tion, eru­di­tion or plain sense.

It some­how never even gets to the level of a mar­ket­place brawl in the heat of the day, the brutish enter­tain­ment of pro­fes­sional wrestling seems to have more deco­rum and order in its pro­ceed­ings and even­tual result – it is no won­der peo­ple might bet­ter watch a wrestling match than politi­cians pol­i­tick­ing and preen­ing them­selves in self-absorbed dis­course under the pre­tense of being rep­re­sen­ta­tives of some constituency.

That is the wor­ri­some aspect of this line of thought, the fact that law­mak­ers are not seen in any good light and they then have the power to enact laws and leg­is­la­tion that affects our lives and liveli­hoods, it goes with­out say­ing that we need a bet­ter class of per­son first then bet­ter lev­els of deliberation.

A topic ready for debate

I have been read­ing com­ments to a news story in the good father­land of Nige­ria where law­mak­ers have delib­er­ated the absurd, it is incred­i­ble that we end up with such rep­re­sen­ta­tives; these peo­ple do seri­ously believe they have raised seri­ous con­cerns and their delib­er­a­tions rather than being ridicu­lous are legit­i­mate discourse.

The nEXt online news­pa­per car­ried and arti­cle with the head­line Law­mak­ers ask rob­bers to declare tem­po­rary cease­fire [1], a head­line like that should gar­ner enough curios­ity and inter­est, it did mine.

Nige­ria is cur­rently host­ing the Under-17 Foot­ball World Cup, a com­pe­ti­tion that was almost pulled last year because the gov­ern­ment could not see its oblig­a­tion to fol­low through a com­mit­ment to host, the self-same gov­ern­ment that is seek­ing a per­ma­nent seat on the UN Secu­rity Coun­cil – such is the myopia that plagues our leadership.

Appeal­ing to the patri­o­tism of bandits

Ogun State has one of the venues, so the law­mak­ers met up and first lamented that a par­tic­u­lar loca­tion – Ish­eri Bridge on the bor­der of Lagos and Ogun States had become a den of bandits.

Any­one would think once a hotspot for crime has been iden­ti­fied, you empower, equip and instruct the law enforce­ment agen­cies to sort it out and have a report at some future date as to how it was done and what else they need to be more effec­tive at crime-fighting.

These politi­cians had a dif­fer­ent line of think­ing that could only be expressed ver­ba­tim, “there is a need for the men of the under­world to sus­pend their oper­a­tions in the interim, because of the on-going mundial.”

Yes, our law­mak­ers were ask­ing armed rob­bers to have a cease­fire, they should sus­pend their crim­i­nal activ­i­ties to bol­ster and par­tic­i­pate in the win­dow dress­ing rebrand­ing of Nige­ria as a peace­ful, crime­less and safe country.

Indeed, it is good to appeal to everyone’s sense of patri­o­tism at a time like this, but this takes the absurd to another level crass stu­pid­ity, you can­not imag­ine any­thing worse can come after that appeal.

At the mercy of criminals

Well, it got worse, because the law­maker went on to say, “Then they can resume there­after, because there is nowhere in the world where rob­bers and rob­beries could be stopped from their work.”

One com­ment read, if this were a drama sketch, it would be unbe­liev­able, the lines would be struck out, but this really hap­pened, those words were spo­ken by an elected rep­re­sen­ta­tive that had will­fully sus­pended every iota of intellect.

In one sen­tence, they threw in the towel to crime, left us at the mercy of crim­i­nals and in that defeatist think­ing equated rob­bery to some sort of gain­ful pur­suit or employment.

Rob­bers and rob­beries do get stopped and many do end up being nabbed by the long arm of the law if law enforce­ment is given the tools, respon­si­bil­ity and con­fi­dence to do their job. How­ever, this law­maker and the cham­ber in which his remarks received shame­less hear­ing and debate have under­mined ever estab­lish­ment and insti­tu­tion that might at one time have been able to com­bat this men­ace with all vigour and win.

So fee­ble, so delusional

To rub salt in insult into injury, he con­cluded his plea for sup­port with, “If for­eign­ers wit­ness the rob­bers’ attacks at this point, it would send a bad sig­nal to other nations.” In my view, noth­ing could be worse than hav­ing this debate where the law­mak­ers have put us at the mercy and good­will of men of the under­world and given the police no par­tic­u­lar impe­tus to make order, safety and secu­rity prevail.

Then the Speaker of the House fee­bly sug­gested, “I want to use the oppor­tu­nity to call on the police to inten­sify efforts in check­mat­ing crim­i­nals. They should please not relent in the efforts.” How the police are expected to win the war on crime where the chess anal­ogy leaves them so pow­er­less as pawns and the armed rob­bers are all ele­vated to queens escapes me.

Much more hot air of words but no back­bone or force of par­lia­ment to arrest an unten­able sit­u­a­tion; all this con­sti­tuted a debate in a house of assembly.

Scan­ning through the com­ments left, it is clear that the Niger­ian pop­u­lace with an opin­ion are less than impressed by this and attribute this to the rot that has made pol­i­tics an unpalat­able mix of the nas­ti­est peo­ple hold­ing the reigns of power but com­pletely clue­less as to what being in power represents.

It is no won­der that they can­not even get a local gov­ern­ment offi­cial to appear before them.

The dan­ger is that this kind of delib­er­a­tion is prob­a­bly not an excep­tion, but the norm in many other state assem­blies, pro­vid­ing for chaos, drift and mis­gov­ern­ment – Nige­ri­ans need to talk about this kind of rep­re­sen­ta­tion and delib­er­a­tion, it should never become commonplace.

Source

[1] 234Next.com | Law­mak­ers ask rob­bers to declare tem­po­rary ceasefire