Most commentators have reduced last week's star words between the principal officers of the Senate and the House of Representatives over which appropriate platform President Yar'Adua was to present the 2010 Appropriation Bill proposal to some ego/superiority contest between the two chambers. Of course, it is now an open knowledge that President Yar'adua by proxy, namely Senator Abba-Aji, Presidential liaison officer eventually tabled the bill to the two chambers albeit separately making a good point that the two chambers are equal after all.

At least the President has shown that both the senate and the House of representatives can equally be presented with undifferentiated figures for national expenditures next year regardless of their status in the constitution. In assuming that differences do exist between the two, most commentators have promoted the false impression by the two chambers according to which, there are fundamental differences between them. Nothing could be more unhelpful. In fact most commentaries are misleading in the search to reinvent genuine national assembly as a core determinant of our democratic process.

There is no doubt that ego peddling occasionally serves as defining parameter between the senate and the House. It would be recalled that in January this year, 44 members of the Joint Constitution Review Committee from the House of Representatives staged a walk out in Minna over the issue of nomenclature; namely chairmanship and co-chairmanship. Undoubtedly personal egos have more than once captured public imagination. And this serial exhibition of who-is-superior is not peculiar to the current dispensation. It is long dated.

However as obvious as superiority/inferiority complex hunts the legislators like a spectre, it does not in any way make us to understand the dynamics of the national assembly. Looking at the other not-so-obvious factors, we may discover that in the final analysis, factors which bind together the senators and representatives are more than one singular factor of ego that seems to have divided them. Indeed all considered the difference is not as clear in the character and orientation of the two chambers in relations to national challenges and the role of legislature in the democratic dispensation.

The first significant factor which binds together the legislators regardless of which chambers and political affiliations is the burden of history. The large membership of the current national assembly in the main had their root in discredited military dictatorships. In fact notable leaders of the two chambers have featured prominently in the past military regimes.

With the burden of history of dictatorships that unites the two chambers; it is self evident why superiority/inferiority complex hunts this national assembly. The senate President, David Mark of course was once a state military dictator (or was he a governor?). In the mid eighties David Mark not only imposed but enforced "respect" in his domain (Niger State) as long as the regime lasted. But the same David Mark who once demanded "respect" was eventually forced into exile for "disrespecting" other later day military dispensation. With such pedigree of ascribed authority rather than earned leadership, one can obviously appreciate why Senator Mark could in 2009 democratic Nigeria accused co-legislators like himself and his colleagues in the senate of "disrespect".

Old habit seldom dies you know! Conversely yours sincerely had wondered aloud why the House of Representatives led by Dimeji Bankole had missed a rare opportunity of showing that the House was indeed superior to the senate. Dimeji Bankole in national interest could have simply led his 306 members out of obviously more spacious chamber to the senate chamber of 109 members and dared the senate to host the President in a crowded chamber? Of course it dawned on me that the speaker of the House is also hunted by his military orientation in which fire for fire is the rule.

But have the two chambers leant some civility at all from President Yar'adua who seemed willing to present the appropriation bill at all cost in the interest of the nation?

Beyond the burden of history, contrary to the issue of ego peddling, the two chambers are also united by their slow and laborious process to law making. Ten years after democracy, the quantity and quality of legislations are scandalously inversely related to the resources allocated to constituent allowances, local and international trips and of course oversight functions. Last week the adviser to the President on MDGs, Hajia Amina Ibrahim took an indiscriminate swipe at the two committees of the chambers for obstructing the realisation of MDGs Nigeria signed on through subterfuge and alleged extortions.

Again the difference is not clear between the senate and the House with respect to their indifference to "proper oversight on MDAs and insist on issues like implementation of MDGs, Power Sector, Agriculture and other developmental issues" as recently pointed by a consultative forum of NGOs on MDGs in Abuja. In fact both the two chambers have no fundamental differences when it comes to governance issues in general. No superiority or inferior arguments for or against. They are united against Freedom of Information (FOI) bill.

They are all united against electoral reform among others. Better still, they are all for unqualified deregulation of petroleum down stream sector, they are all for endless annual retreats, constituent projects/allowances, local and international trips of very token value additions. With united chambers on broad governance issues, as shown above, definitely the difference is not clear between the two chambers, the ego peddling notwithstanding.