The recent (or current) issue of where the Annual Budget should be presented by the President of the Federation, Alhaji Umar Yar'Adua, might be described as uncalled for.

The question is whether it should take place separately at each arm of the National Assembly, that is the Senate and the House of Representatives, or at a joint meeting of both. And furthermore, if at a joint assembly, which particular chambers would be more suitable or appropriate.

Unfortunately, the 1999 Constitution does not seem to promulgate the details of the presentation beyond the injunction that it should be "laid before each house". (Vide Section 81 (4)). It also did not stipulate whether it should be together or severally.

All the same, there is an indication that the Constitution recommends a joint session as an instrument of great merit and authority in the mediation of decisions. For instance, in the event of a logjam in the position of the President and that of the National Assembly in the passing of an appropriation bill (or other bills of a fiscal consequence) the Constitution makes a joint meeting the final arbiter. (Vide Section 59.)

It even goes further to submit that the President "may attend any joint meeting of the National Assembly" to "deliver an address on national affairs, including fiscal measures". (Vide Section 67). So it recognizes the utility, in specific cases, of a joint session.

This is not the first Budget that would be presented by a Chief Executive, even including the incumbent. The preceding ones, dating back to the very first over forty years ago, were accomplished without any disagreement as to the venue.

The usual procedure has been at a joint session, under the joint chairmanship of the President of the Senate and the Speaker of the House, with the former assuming the position, as it were, of primus inter pares.

However, now there are members on both sides of the National Assembly who are ready to make a change, contrary to the position of many others who would like to preserve the status quo. Several of the latter are in the House of Representatives, which has been usually referred to as the "Lower House". This is a title that has gathered considerable resentment among the Representatives in recent times, especially since there is little in the Constitution, by which the National Assembly is established, to indicate that either branch is inferior or should be subservient to the other.

But that is the norm in the system of bicameral legislatures all over the world. And in that are included nations with diverse kinds of government like Britain, Chile, Russia. Pakistan, Austria, Spain, Columbia, and of course, the United States of America.

What they all seem to have in common is a larger "lower" house, a designation that is more traditional than anything else, as they both have equal legislative powers and neither can solely effect any legislation without the consent of the other.

While this process appears cumbersome in some measure, it really assures that the laws that would be made to govern a nation have passed through adequate deliberations by her chosen citizens.

The glorification of the characterization of one arm of the National Assembly as being the "upper" one, which appears to be at the root of this entire imbroglio, is now assuming dimensions which definitely must be beyond those of mere personal vanity or collective pride.

On the one hand, the so-called "lower" house actually rakes in less "mazuma" at the end of each month, and also in the course of the allocation of general remuneration. That hurts - let's face it, it hurts. It would even hurt more for any one whose priority in service is pointed towards rewards.

On the other hand, the hubristic tendency of the so-called "upper house" to flaunt its putative seniority at the instance of any issue removes from the circumstances conducive to cooperation and cordiality between the two branches of the National Assembly.

The controversy smacks of injudicious puerilism in high places. Maturity dictates that the whims of an individual or a group should not be converted to the grief of so many other people. The processing of the budget is a national exercise upon which the welfare of the entire peoples of this country depends. It should be accorded a priority and respect beyond the mundane issues of individual benefits.

mega impossible

Of all the submissions that have been made about the formation of a new "mega-party", those that hinge on its necessity appear the least porous.

Professor Jerry Gana recently postulated that the formation of a "mega-party" would strengthen our ailing democracy on those grounds, and one is inclined to agree with him.

By the way, I hope you remember the good Professor. He was once a Minister of Information who swayed dangerously between posturing as a politician and registering as an intellectual, in the second corning of Obasanjo. He went all the way to emerge as a Presidential hopeful in the 2007 election under the umbrella of the PDP.

This is the party he would now make us believe needs to be heavily challenged by any means of bringing people together, no matter who. I need not remind you that Gana also ended up among the flotsam and jetsam casually deposited on the political shore of vain hopes and broken dreams. By those elements of his fragmented antecedent, his views must be accepted as flawed for they can only be presented on the platform of a disappointed loser, a "has-been" striving to be relevant.

But he has a good point. A democratic government without a viable opposition is like a bird with only one wing; it can neither fly fast nor far. But it is also not practical to build up an opposition in the face of a leviathan incumbent political party in power, especially with a leadership of woolly credibility.

We have said it before, and we will say it again. Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida had the recipe. Okay, I will not deny that I was once his fan. Maybe I still am. But that is beside the point. We are discussing his precepts here, not his personality.

And even if you bear him hard, it would still not be politic to throw the baby out with the bath water. We have to go back to his tried and true method of dismantling the entire system and regrouping the polity anew on the basis of two strong parties, cleansed of the "ministers of misrule" from whom we have suffered for so long.