How Nigeria’s Legislature Became a Choir of Praise-Singers in a Supposed Democracy

• By Okoye, Chuka Peter. Centre for Human Rights Advocacy and Wholesome Society – Cehraws

There was once a time, not too long ago, when the Nigerian Legislature stood as the moral and constitutional compass of the nation, a place where men and women, though divided by party lines, were united by purpose. That purpose was the defence of the people’s voice, the scrutiny of power, and the preservation of our collective dignity.

In those days of the Second Republic, the chambers of the National Assembly were arenas of conviction and intellect. Each sitting was a national event, aired live on radio and television, where fiery debates and sharp legal reasoning filled the air. The lawmakers of that era; men like Edwin Ume-Ezeoke, Chuba Okadigbo, and their contemporaries, might have disagreed on ideology, but they were never servile. They sparred with Presidents, they summoned Ministers, they held Governors accountable, and they defended their constituencies with the zeal of patriots.

Even the impeachments of that era – of Speakers, of Governors, were symbols of a vibrant democracy, not of chaos. They showed a legislature conscious of its power and unafraid to exercise it. It was an age when elected representatives understood that their allegiance was to the people, not to the throne of executive power.

But sadly, that proud era has decayed into mockery.

THE LEGISLATURE AND ITS CONSTITUTIONAL MANDATE

In every true democracy, the legislature is not a decorative organ, it is the living soul of representative governance. Section 4 of the 1999 Constitution (as amended) vests legislative powers of the Federation in the National Assembly, and those of the States in the Houses of Assembly. The legislature is mandated to make laws for peace, order and good governance, to check the Executive through oversight, to approve budgets, and to represent the will of the people.

By contrast, the Executive, established under Section 5, is charged with the implementation and enforcement of laws, while the Judiciary, under Section 6, interprets those laws and ensures justice through constitutional adjudication. Each arm is designed to be independent, co-equal and mutually restraining, none is superior to the other. This sacred separation of powers, a cornerstone of constitutional democracy, was crafted to prevent tyranny and to guarantee that no single arm becomes omnipotent.

Therefore, when the legislature abdicates its duties, democracy becomes a façade; when lawmakers become praise-singers of the Executive, checks and balances are replaced with chains and bondage.

FROM VANGUARD OF THE PEOPLE TO CHOIR OF THE PALACE

Today, Nigeria’s legislature has traded its voice for applause and its authority for allowance. Our once-revered lawmakers have become jesters in agbadas, hailing their masters in open defiance of the dignity of their office.

Who can forget that shameful scene in the hallowed chamber of the Senate, where the supposed representatives of the people, upon receiving the President during a budget presentation, broke into a sycophantic chorus:

“On your mandate, we shall stand! On your mandate, Jagaban! On your mandate, we shall stand!”

It was not a National Assembly; it was a choir rehearsal. Men and women elected to hold the Executive accountable had turned their sacred chamber into a campaign ground of servitude. What an irony? That single scene captured in full colour, how deeply our legislature has descended into mockery and moral bankruptcy.

And as if the national stage was not enough embarrassment, a similar show of shame allegedly played out in Imo State. Members of the said State House of Assembly, rather than serve as the people’s watchdog, broke into songs of loyalty to their Governor: choruses of worship that would make even court jesters blush. What message does such sycophancy send to the people they represent? That their lawmakers no longer belong to them, but to the throne that feeds them?

This is no longer democracy; it is political theatre where the actors wear the costumes of legislators but play the script of the Executive. The legislature; once a proud arm of government, is now an appendage, a mere extension of executive will.

Gone are the days when lawmakers stood up to Presidents and Governors. Gone are the days when the House debated policies with fire in their hearts. Today’s legislators sit like schoolchildren before a headmaster, waiting for instruction, waiting for handouts. Budgets are passed without scrutiny, policies are endorsed without question, and critical bills are rushed through chambers like goods on a conveyor belt. All in a bid to please the powers that be.

Beyond their silence and subservience, many lawmakers now flaunt their disregard for public accountability. At a time when citizens groan under severe economic hardship, Abia State legislators have embarked on extravagant overseas retreats and so-called “capacity building” vacations, all at the expense of the taxpayers. These foreign escapades, often disguised as official study tours, have become avenues for leisure and luxury rather than learning.

They appear to be nothing more than alleged “appreciation package” from the Executive for their willing submission and legislative enslavement. This represents the height of fiscal insensitivity and irresponsibility, that those elected to make laws for a struggling economy choose instead to squander public funds with impunity, celebrating excess while the people they represent sink deeper into poverty.

Our National Assembly, instead of checking the excesses of the Executive, now protects them. Instead of fighting for the hungry and unemployed, they defend the comfortable. They trade the people’s trust for patronage, the nation’s future for fleeting comfort.

THE FORGOTTEN ARM: LOCAL COUNCILLORS AND THE DEATH OF GRASSROOTS DEMOCRACY

If the National and State legislatures have lost their dignity, the Local Government Legislative Councils have lost their very existence. The councillors, who constitute the legislative arm of the third tier of government, are today reduced to mere spectators; shadows of what a true grassroots parliament should be.

Under the Fourth Schedule of the Constitution, the local government is the closest government to the people, designed to ensure participation, accountability, and development at the community level. Yet, in today’s Nigeria, most local government councils exist only in name. Their legislative arms have been stripped of independence, their resolutions ignored, and their voices silenced.

Councillors are treated not as representatives of the people, but as errand boys of local government chairmen and governors. Some have been reduced to market revenue collectors, others to protocol aides, all under the choking grip of state executives who dictate who speaks, who eats, and who survives.

When the legislature dies at the grassroots, democracy withers from below. And so, the decay at the top has seeped into the roots: from Abuja to the remotest ward, representation has become a ritual without meaning.

A DEMOCRACY IN PERIL

The moral decay of the legislature is the death of our democracy. For when the branch that should question power chooses instead to serenade it, tyranny no longer needs to roar. It only needs to whisper.

Today’s lawmakers were elected as the people’s voice but have become echoes of executive desires. They wear the garb of representation but carry the spirit of submission. They have forgotten that the true mandate belongs not to a man or party, but to the people whose hopes they betray daily.

Nigeria bleeds not only from the failures of the Executive but from the silence of those elected to check it. Until our legislators remember their sacred duty — to stand on the people’s mandate and not on that of a politician — our democracy will remain a shadow of itself: a government of the few, for the few, and by the few who sing the loudest.

History will not be kind to this generation of lawmakers. For while others stood to defend democracy, they knelt to defend power. Do they still legislate, or merely laminate the wishes of their masters?