Bloated Senate, Empty Senators By Sonala Olumhense

I have heard a lot of things in my
time, but I have yet to hear of a
Nigerian Senator with a
demonstrable commitment to
Nigeria.
I spend a great deal of time on the
website of the Senate because it is
supposed to be a ready source of
information on the so-called Upper
House. I have been obsessed with
locating the trail of a Senator who—
in practice—is putting the
advancement of Nigeria first.
I have heard a lot of things in my
time, but although I never tire of
hearing of Senators who are fending
greedily for themselves, I do not
hear of any that is passionate about
eliminating poverty in Nigeria.
Think about it: we have three years
to 2015, and you never hear
anyone within the pompous
precincts of the Senate talking
about the Millennium Development
Goals (MDGs), which Nigeria
promised to achieve in 2000.
While many countries have worked
hard to achieve those goals, Nigeria
has fallen so far behind that in
many respects, she is behind such
countries as Rwanda, which was
almost wiped off the map by a
terrible ethnic crisis in 1994.
Also within Africa, I could mention
the advancement of the MDGs in
such countries as Ghana or South
Africa, but Abuja hates to hear
about countries that are used as the
clearest indicators of the fall of
Nigeria.
I do not want to embarrass the
Senators, so let me simply mention
the infrastructural collapse that is all
around our Senators. I do not hear
any of them speaking with any true
concern or sense of purpose in this
respect about the failure of
successive governments of which
they have been a part.
These Senators, as I described in
this column recently, have among
other things bought for themselves
new Toyota Land Cruiser luxury SUV
cars, each costing about $100,000.
Congratulations, Senators. I trust
you are enjoying your luxury in the
pathetic contrivances we call roads,
and hopefully can no longer see the
dying and the dead on those roads.
I trust you are enjoying your new
possession without having to
account for the cars that have been
allocated to the Senator from your
district in the past 13 years.
All a Senator has to do is wind up
the windows of that heaven on
earth when he travels the country,
and Boko Haram will flee in the
other direction. All he has to do is
turn up the music and he will not
need to see the poverty and
unemployment and ill-health
beyond the windows. It is not the
Senator’s fault that a child has no
potable water, or that a student is
unable to pay his school fees, or
that a pregnant woman lacks the
medical attention that will save her
life and that of her unborn baby. No
Senator wants to have to answer
such questions.
And no Senator cares enough,
either, to speak in favour of
Nigeria’s democracy or her
development in an open, honest,
consistent way. That is why
democracy in Nigeria has become a
joke; the first order of all who hold
office is to ensure they do not lose
the individual nipple through which
they bleed the people to death.
Where is the Senator who can call
on the President to declare his
assets because it is the
constitutional and ethical thing to
do? Where is the Senator who is
patriotic enough to ask the
uncomfortable questions about
Nigeria’s pretend-war on corruption?
If you were to ask any Senator, you
will receive effusive answers about
the higher interests he is
“pursuing.” Take a look, for
instance, at the “Senatorial District
Page” of the President of the
Senate, Mr. David Mark. He lists his
“Legistlative (sic) Interest(s)” as
Foreign and National Security. You
wonder whether Mr. Mark is working
on a joke, or is actually serious
when he says his prime interest
includes “foreign security.” Read
further, and on Target Achievement
(s), he says he aims to achieve
“Legislation on Improved Image For
Nigeria.” Not development, not
security, not good governance—as
clichéd and empty as those would
sound—but to legislate “improved
image for Nigeria.”
Our Senators never list their phone
numbers. That way, it is clear they
wish to be responsible only to
themselves. They do not want a
constituent to complain about how
ashamed they are to call a particular
individual his Senator. Look at their
profiles: they usually list the
dummy, senatecontact@
nass.gov.ng, as their address.
But if you really need proof that our
Senators treat the Senate only as an
ATM (Access To Millions), visit the
District Page of one Emeka John
Okey, who was born last year, but
was a Senator before he was even
born. He assumed his seat on May
29, 2011 although he was born one
month later: on July 1, 2011. In
other words, for all of June, 2011,
this gentleman enjoyed in his
mother’s womb the unbridled
Senatorial lifestyle that is possible
only in PDP-land.
Our Senators really do want
Nigerians to know how dedicated
they are: an image they have
desired since 1999, and for which
they wanted to be generous on their
website with information. And yet
the pages extravagantly advertised
as “ABOUT OUR DISTRICT,”
“PROJECTS,” and “ACTIVITIES” bear
the legend—after all these years
—“Under Construction/Maintenance
Please!”
Even Mr. Mark, who proudly
proclaims himself to be “President
of the Senate of the 6th National
Assembly (2007-2011),
Distinguished Senator of the 4th,
5th and 6th National Assembly:
1999-2011 Senates,” does not have
a bucket of warm piss to report.
But it is these same Senators who
ran into the streets in a frenzy last
week, urging a man who promotes
our democracy by refusing to
declare his assets to “chase the
coup plotters in Mali out of power.”
Our Senators, feeling particularly
virile, wanted President Goodluck
Jonathan to use soldiers to
“immediately restore the
democratically elected government
of President Amadou Toure.” They
wanted to be champions abroad of
what they deny at home.
One of the microphone warriors said
Nigeria must “get involved both
democratically and militarily”
because “that is what America
does.”
They were really baking, those
Senators, but half-baked people,
like half-baked patriotism, are easy
to identify. There is no Nigerian
Senator—not one—that has ever
cared about the poverty and
underdevelopment of Mali. If they
snatch milk from the mouths of
Nigeria’s children, how can they
possibly be kept awake at night by
Mali’s agricultural woes?
No, it does not take a pair of
binoculars to see through the
veneer of this sudden democratic
activism: these Senators were
simply scared that should Nigerian
soldiers borrow a thought from their
colleagues in Mali, none of them
would survive.
Let me be clear: I believe that
military rule is a contradiction in
terms. The paradox, unfortunately,
is that the current army of
occupation, symbolized by the
Senators, is worse than the
military. If soldiers shoot to kill,
these carnivores simply eat you
alive. As politicians, these are the
world’s best example of why people
think of the worst, from suicide to
mass killing to military coups. They
hope, sadly, that the rot from which
they benefit will last forever.
Their response to the situation in
Mali is therefore completely in
character: they care neither about
their own country nor its people.
Their selfish motive, as always, is
about guaranteeing the
perpetuation of the easy life they
have found, and its protection from
people who talk bullets.
That is because, in the end, the
most indolent and hypocritical are
often the most cowardly.
•

sonala.olumhense@
gmail.com