Thanks to my friend, Auwal Musa also known as Rafsanjani, I have been involved with the training of state legislators and community development bodies on how to interact and work with ach other. The legislature is weak and needs help. The three states that we have interacted with present us with a picture of people who really are at loss as what their role should be
I now know why it is so easy for 6 out of 24 members of the Plateau State House of Assembly to impeach their state governor; I also now know why corruption has taken over the affairs of state governments. Those not familiar with Nigeria may wonder what I am writing about?
At both Niger and Nasarawa states, only the Clerks of the two houses of Assembly and Committee Secretaries turned up for the training programme. Legislators in Nasarawa and Niger had the same reason for not coming. A member was wedding and they needed to be there!
Jigawa state was a completely a different case. The date for the interaction was fixed by the legislators. Then bingo! An €œORDER€ was received that they had to pass the budget that day!!! The time for the interaction was changed to enable them to come for the interaction. Yes of course, they did turn up, the speaker and all paraphernalia of office..
A sleeping security man/watchman is as good as useless. So smart alec Turaki € did not have anyone watching over him. No one inspected the state government resources € so he took, by his confession, a whopping N10billion, and handed over to General Olusegun Obasanjo to prosecute the failed third term project € by which, they had unsuccessfully sought to amend the constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria to allow Obasanjo, and by extension, Turaki enjoy three € or even unlimited tenures.
The tragedy of the state legislatures is that, both the legislators and civil society groups do not know what role the legislature should play. This lack of capacity has given rise to the massive, and largely, unreported corruption existing in the states. What the EFCC and ICPC have complained about are a small fraction of the waste, fraud and corruption existing in the states. State governors have become not just laws unto themselves (or appropriately put out laws, they have made democracy unattractive at the state levels € and as witnessed, during the 2007 elections, they have so cornered security and federal agencies such as the INEC, that they effectively determined that they ensured that most Nigerians did not vote!
That we might all rise up to entrench democracy at the state level!!!!!!!!Only God knows how the Local Governments are faring