Charles Ajunwa
5 January 2009
analysis
Lagos — Since his election as Senate President in June 2007, Senator David Bonaventure Mark has navigated several troubled waters and emerged unscathed.
The incumbent Senate President, David Mark, during his inauguration in June 2007 promised a vibrant legislative leadership that would ensure the enactment of laws and oversight activities that would champion high level of discipline in the system and streamline focus geared towards the upliftment of the living standard of the ordinary Nigerian.
Mark was first elected to the Nigerian Senate in 1999 at the inception of the current democratic dispensation. His emergence as Senate President in 2007 immediately put critics and political watchers on the lookout. This led to a wave of initial public scepticism on whether the Senate under his leadership would actually deliver the people's mandate especially considering his military background in the face of a civilian system.
Added to that was the already prevailing negative perception of non performance that hung as a garb of dishonour on the previous Senates with many critics maintaining that it was going to be business as usual even in the emerging dispensation.
Before Mark's era, the preceding Senate swarmed in controversies ranging from continuous frictions with the executive to internal wrangling mostly triggered and sustained by partisan and personal pecuniary interests, which resulted in the jettisoning of legislative activities for sustained Machiavellian wars to the detriment of the people.
Nearly two years after, the question is has, the Senate under Mark's leadership changed anything in the upper legislative chamber? Has it charted the way for the overall realization of the true expectation of the people in line with the promise made by the Senate President immediately he assumed office in June, 2007?
While some pro-democracy groups argue that Mark's emergence as the Senate President marks the beginning of democratic leadership in the Nigerian parliament, others still harbour a level of scepticism and had always referred to issues of the past to insist that the present dispensation of government at the legislature and the executive are merely chips from the old blocks from which governments have always been carved out.
The view expressed by the rightist groups critically draws from the events surrounding the emergence of the present leadership in the Senate which they insists signaled the emergence of true democracy and the end of the "nascent democracy" cliché which had turned to become a psycho-social clog in the wheel of the nation's democratic development.
This is because for the first time in the nation's contemporary history, a parliamentary leadership emerged through an open election on the floor as truly envisaged by the constitution and the rules of the legislature.
Mark had in June 2007 defeated Senator George Akume in a keenly contested election with an overwhelming 69 to 39 votes on the floor of the Senate. The Senate President won even after Senators Gbemi Saraki and Nuhu Aliyu stepped down for Akume and for the first time, the Senate chose its President through popular vote by members in an open session.
Before then, successive leaderships in the Senate emerged through selection by the executive and the leadership of the ruling People's Democratic Party (PDP) and imposed on the lawmaking body to the chagrin of the very essence of parliamentary democracy.
Sadly such a process had reduced the past Senate to a mere rubber stamp to the whims and caprices of the executive and the party hierarchy thereby negating the principle of separation of powers and the attendant checks and balances expected in the government circle. The implication was that in the past, the people's will expected to be protected by the legislature was by that process subjected to endless abuses which hinders the people from benefiting from them.
Against this background, parliamentary watchers believe that the emergence of Mark's Senate Presidency marks the beginning of a democratic era of strict adherence to rules in the system. This is because whereas the previous system made the Senate leadership answerable to the executive or the party hierarchy, the present leadership in the Senate drawing from the political play out that midwived it became independent of such controls in tandem with that envisaged by the constitution.
It is remarkable that in the last two years, the Senate has not experienced the walkouts, the partisan divisions, the unnecessary hecklings, infightings and cross government meddlesomeness that characterized the immediate past upper legislative chamber.
It is noteworthy that past Senates have been weighed down by continuous external and internal frictions. Analysts believe that the stability and tranquility experienced in the Senate in the last two years is a product of the process that produced the leadership which had repositioned the lawmaking body for a deeper democratic experience.
Because of the fore going, the Senate President had since his inauguration continued to maintain his stand that the present Senate is only answerable to Nigerians whose mandate had been expressed by their representatives in the election.
The process had in the last two years changed the culture of secrecy in the Senate with the lawmakers now having most of their activities in open session instead of the continuous closed sessions that characterized the legislature in the past. Mark's view has been that the Legislature under him "have a covenant" with the people of Nigeria to ensure that the dividends of democracy is delivered to Nigerians through enactment of "issue based and people oriented laws and effective oversight on the executive branch" to guarantee good governance for the benefit of the ordinary man.
To achieve its set goal, the leadership of the present Senate under Mark has initiated series of institutional and technical innovations to further the constitutional role of the legislature to meet the challenges of the contemporary Nigeria and they have been yielding dividends.
These includes series of periodic technical capacity building programmes for legislators and management of the National Assembly, accelerated consideration and passage of key legislations to enhance the current economic reforms, strategic institutional interventions through widened oversight activities to ensure best practices and adequate provision of essential services and products and a series of system wide probes to ensure accountability and transparency in all sectors of the economy.
Analysts believe that this legislative retooling is a product of long standing experience already garnered by the crop of Senators in the leadership. The Senate President has been in government circle for over two decades in addition to his ten years experience in the Senate giving him the required skills to run a result-oriented parliament.
The disposition of the present leadership in the Senate to reposition the legislature was quickly manifested in the choice of leadership and membership of standing committees of the Senate and the marching order by the Senate President to deliver or be dropped.
Mark, in appointing committee chairmen insisted on merit as against party leaning resulting in the appointment of some senators from opposition parties into key committees. The idea being that the Senate is that of Nigerians and not that of any political party.
The Senate president had also refused to set up a kitchen cabinet which is believed to be part of factors responsible for the undoing of Senate Presidents before him. He runs an open door policy.
Within the last two years, the Senate has redefined legislative oversight to include strategic interventions furthered by dialogue in the settlement of knotty governance issues in the polity.
The present industrial harmony and relative price stability in key sectors in the country is largely attributed to this innovation which has reduced friction experienced between government at all levels and the organized labour.
Immediately it was inaugurated, the Senate leadership focused on areas requiring immediate intervention in the interest of the people.
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