Parliament needs to improve on its public communication for the people to better understand its workings

Last week, the media landscape was agog with critical reports of N70 billion and N35 billion purportedly allocated to the National Assembly and the Judiciary respectively. These sums were said to be their share of the palliatives proposed by President Bola Tinubu to cushion the effect of the removal of subsidy on petrol. Several civil society organisations and the Nigerian Labour Congress (NLC) were understandably at the head of the opposition to these purported allocations, contending that it was against public morality for such scandalous provisions to be made for 469 members of the National Assembly and 201 judicial officers, while N500 billion was provisioned for 12 million households and 60 million poor of the poorest in the country.

We understand the basis for the anger, even if misplaced. As we argued recently, there can be no better time than now to review the structure of government and the remunerations of public officials in Nigeria. If the ordinary people on the street must sacrifice to keep the country afloat, those elected or appointed to serve them cannot continue to live in obscene opulence. Some ministers, senators and other public officers earn double or triple salaries while only a few states have reduced the scandalous pension package for ex-governors in terms of salaries for life, houses in the state capitals plus Abuja, medical, vehicle and other allowances. This is the genesis to the anger over the allocations to the National Assembly and the judiciary.

However, public resentment would have been justified had the president proposed these figures for they would have been clearly disproportionate. But this is a misreading of what happened. The proposed N500 billion would be sourced from the N819.54 billion Supplementary Budget passed in December 2022 for President Muhammadu Buhari by the Ninth National Assembly to redevelop infrastructure that were damaged across the country by flood. President Tinubu also proposed to give N70 billion to the National Assembly to renovate its dilapidated complex and provide essential equipment for the new legislators who had just been inaugurated. The judiciary, he further proposed was to get N35 billion for its essential services.

In effect, what the president did was to take permission from the federal lawmakers to repurpose the N819.54 Supplementary Budget passed by the Ninth National Assembly in view of prevailing exigencies. Properly speaking, the presidential request was for the virement of already allocated funds since the executive is not permitted by law to reallocate subhead funds without legislative authorisation. Meanwhile, rather than spend the funds on the redevelopment of infrastructure damaged by floods as originally approved, the president now has legislative consent to channel the resources to subsidy removal palliative for the poor, renovation of the National Assembly Complex, and the Judiciary, items that were not in the 2022 Supplementary Budget.

Although the Senate spokesman, Senator Yemi Adaramodu countered the negative narratives, especially on social media, his explanations were drowned by the avalanche of public condemnations. This must have arisen from the distrust of the lawmakers as well as their perennial weak and most often clumsy public engagement. Going forward, the National Assembly needs to improve on its public communication for the people it serves to better understand its workings and activities.

But beyond the issue of communication, what should also not be lost to our lawmakers is that at a period when Nigerians are told to sacrifice with policies that make their lives more difficult than ever, government officials must be sensitive to public mood. If the ordinary people on the street must sacrifice to keep the country afloat, those elected or appointed to serve them cannot continue to live in luxury.

Update news