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Author: Olu Obafemi
Posted to the web: 6/11/2005 6:29:06 AM

Listening to the words and utterances—which almost equate policy statements—of the new Senate President, Ken Nnamani, it is difficult, in the light of experience not to get a certain kind of blended sensation, some goose pimples. We know the pedigree of those who have trodden that path before. We are familiar with their power of oratory and polemics (in the case of the late Chuba Okadigbo and his hammer of words), their capacity for ambivalence and cunning (we are yet to fix the proper names of Evans Enwerem) and the prodigy of aloofness and caution of Pius Anyim. It was Adolphus Nwabara who displayed great wisdom in standing clear of serious conflict or contention of power in the name of pursuing the principle of the separation of powers between the Executive and the National Assembly. He too, caught between the lure of Mammon and a curious power lust (both sides of the same corn) fell flat on a slippery banana peel. Thus, though it is gratifying, even exciting, to hear the pious proclamations of Ken Nnamani—his mission to redesign and revamp the image of the National Assembly, to adhere strictly to the task of bill-making, law-churning, prudence and accountability and to be committed to patriotic ideals of a builder in the legislative arm of governance, so on, it is difficult to swallow his gospel, hook line and sinker. This is what experience does to discernible minds. It is difficult not to seek clarifications of the composition and chemistry of this new Number Three in the national hierarchy, to make us believe him that he is different or will be different and that he will not go down the way of others before him—people with seeming mightier pedigrees in fair and foul ways. Some credible points have been offered to strengthen his bio—data, from the lack-lustre pedestal from which he was shot to the limelight at the bewildering collapse of Wabara. One of these credentials is that there are not any of the hang-ups that blight the stars of some of his predecessors. We have not heard of the kind of shabby and dubious electioneering that brought Wabara to the Senate. Nobody has contested his election results. Nnamani is given, by those who claim to know him, is an easy-going, not obtrusively ambitious, nor haughty. He is not given to demagoguery or the flamboyance of Chuba Okadigbo. Instead, he is portrayed as a man of stupendous candour and maturity. His recent indirect swipe at his home-State Governor and name-sake, Chimaroke Nnamani, for petty-mindedness in not attending a reception for him is considered as a demonstration of his bluntness on matters in which political brinkmanship is expected to supersede personal sentiments.Some of the declarations he has made of his personal carriage and perception of the task ahead of him—a task which he says will lead him along new paths, away from the Ghana-must-go, avaricious self-seeking that has virtually pulverized the stature of the National Assembly, lead one to giddy and hasty thoughts, about difference. He has come out clearly to state that moneymaking is not the business of Senate. The business of Senate is service. He makes a clear distinction between politics and contractocracy. He defines the essential position, with a deft clarity of vision and grasp, of conceptual issues when he avers that the legislature is the crucial factor in a democracy—one, which distinguishes between democracy and dictatorship. In a military rule, there was still the Executive army, variously referred to as Supreme Military Council or Armed Forces Ruling Council, manned by top military brasses, except for its occasional punctuation with some favoured civilians, in the name of gaining credibility from society. The Judiciary is also in place, in military governance, in one mangled and emasculated form or the other. This is the time when the timbrous men of the Bench find their hands and legs tied and their mouths blocked by one form of arbitrariness or settlement or the other. When the military muzzles its way to power, through the barrel of a gun, it immediately stamps its treasonous status by suspending the Constitution—and the Legislature disappears. When, under a fabricated Presidency, the Legislature was left in place by the Babangida regime, it soon became obvious to the National Assembly that it is there as a rubber-stamp—or as they say, a toothless bulldog. It was only a matter of time before it was dislodged and all pretences dropped. Again here, Nnamani is deftly correct, about the role of the Legislature as the imperative denominator of liberal democracy.With all of these perceptiveness of the new Senate President, and the initial, token but significant steps that he has taken—like refusing to move to NICON NOGA or hiring a sprawling mansion temporarily before his lodge is ready—it would seem a new lease of life, dressed in prudence, frugality and drive of vision, what he himself tagged as 'new thinking; new attitude', is descending on the leadership turf of our hugely, but deservedly, maligned Upper House. The question is for how long shall this new dream last before the return of de ja vu? Nigerians do not necessarily reside in the cocoon of cynicism, but they have been fooled too many times that they can ill-afford to drop their guard by a few tokens of good intentions, noble ideals and so on. It is worth it to call on the Senate President not to make too many mouth-watering pronouncements. He should not over-moisten our appetite, so that if he makes it in the end to greatness, we shall savour the victory with him. But if, on the other, he goes the way of the rest, who succumbed, to the will of the flesh, we should have an elbowroom for recovery.Some rather acutely pessimistic critics and commentators are already reading unedifying signs in the previous actions of the new Senate President. Too soon, one might say, but he needs to be informed what hues are already in the air. His claim to accessibility to the President and to being able to penetrate and persuade him with superior argument is a very critical statement and a fairly new perception of the President—and a positive score in advance, for Obasanjo. This is an earnestness of success that would lend a new perception and a new rapprochement to the necessarily fractious relationship between the Executive and the Legislature. Ken Nnamani, on the basis of this perception and inroad into the heart of the nation’s Chief Executive, seeks for dialogue with, rather than a death sentence pronouncement on, the President. The frantic effort by the Lower House to gather impeachment logistics and arguments against the President will certainly not receive the blessing of a Senate President who believes that the man is reachable, accessible, convincible and therefore needed to be dialogued with. Impeachment is a final resort, which can over-heat the system, if hastily and frequently deployed. We are all, hearts in our mouths, waiting that Senator Ken Nnamani is right and all or most of his predecessors are wrong. The country will be the better for it and the legislature will win the laurel, if separation of powers between the National Assembly and the Executive can be achieved, through jaw-jaw.Candour is not the same as brashness. The unceremonious way in which the Senate President removed Senator Olowoporoku as Chairman, Senate Committee on Agriculture, without thorough investigation by an adhoc Committee of Senate to investigate the allegations of the friction between Olowoporoku and the Ministry of Agriculture, does not point in the way of maturity, dialogue and thoroughness. This, coming, even after the Senator was cleared of wrong doing by the Federal Cabinet, gives some cause for slight worry. There are other accusing fingers pointing at the Senate President for giving preferences to certain Senators who may have backed his candidature as President, to the disfavour of others who did not. The business of Senate of making laws, carrying out oversight functions, fulfilling the aspirations of the electorate in winning infrastructural benefits, without sharing Capital funds, and ensuring checks and balance on the Executive, are important factors in the sustenance of our democracy. The general posture of the Senate President is heart-warming. Let the dream of a new way in the Senate come through.