It is the upper chamber of the Nigerian National Assembly that we are about to discuss. That is the same one, out of the two chambers, that is respectfully referred to as the Red Chamber.
The other one is called House of Representative. Or reverently and honourably accommodated within the language of being the Green Chamber.
Our discussion today is going to be more on the Upper Chamber, which we may be referring to as Senate of hard drugs. You may not have heard me well enough. Yes, a Senate of hard drugs. But wait a moment. Why would the name drugs be associated with that chamber of Distinguishable – Special Citizens of the Federal Republic?
One of the first earlier Professors of Mass Communication in the London School of Journalism thought his students – this must be more than Forty Years ago of course, that “if you find it difficult to start a story, go back to the beginning and start from there”. Ipso facto, let us go to the beginning of this trajectory to commence this discussion.
It all happened last week, during an amiable discussion around a new Bill being packaged at the Upper Chamber that the language – caption of this topic, sauntered into the Chamber. And it did not come from an outsider, but instead, the language came from a Distinguished Senator of the Chamber.
Let us first meet with this most Distinguished Senator before going for the enormity of the bomb he dropped.
Senator Kawu Sumaila represents Kano South Senatorial Zone of Kano State, and he is a member of the New Nigerian People’s Party [NNPP]. The lawmaker known to be bold and factual shouldn’t be new to many Nigerians at all.
Just as early as August 14, this year, he was the same person that revealed to the whole world that as Senator, his takeaway every month – both in salary and allowances, was Twenty-One Million Naira [N21,000,000]. By that revelation, he became the second lawmaker to have been bold enough in revealing to us what lawmakers in the Nigerian National Assembly received.
The first lawmaker to have given us such fact was Senator Shehu Sani, who represented Kaduna State in the 8th National Assembly. Senator Sani told us that the monthly take-home of every Senatore, during that time, was Thirteen Million Naira [N13, 000,000}.
A factual revelation that put paid to all the lies of both the National Assembly Management Structure, and even the Revenue Mobilisation Allocation and Fiscal Commission – the federal government’s body that is saddled with fixing salary and wages for public organizations.
It is this same Senator that was bold enough to tell his other Distinguished colleagues [or what are we to call them?] that the Bill before them for debate – National Institute for Drug Awareness and Rehabilitation, ought to be evaluated and properly interrogated against perspective of membership’s background.
He accused his colleagues at the National Assembly of drug abuse in the course of their official duties. Listen to how he put it.
“As I speak now, most of our offices in our constituencies, most of our political offices in our constituencies, most of our houses, when you go there, you will find out that there is a mountain of drugs and there are drug dealers in our offices and in our houses, all in our houses.”
The Distinguished Senator Sumaila also claimed that he knew some senior politicians who were supporting drug dealers to carry out their illegal activities.
“I can take you to some of the political leaders who are in so many ways contributing or supporting drug abusers in Nigeria”, cautioning the Senate President that, “Mr. President, we need to be serious because if we are talking, we need to understand; we are all one here. We need to fight it from our own side. We need to be serious. Let us go for test and see who and who are not,” he concluded.
The Kano State lawmaker alleged emphatically that most of his colleagues possessed hard drugs and kept them in their constituency offices and homes, claiming also that majority of the senators had ties with drug dealers.
The Senator even challenged his colleagues to swear by the Qur’an or the Bible that they did not encourage drug abuse during their electioneering campaigns.
It could be that he was too sure of the allegation that he advanced further in recommending some steps that can be taken in making the Nigerian Senate to purge itself of the issue he discussed. We can review some of his recommendations below.
He called for drug tests for politicians before allowing them to contest elections and on assumption of political offices.
He said: “whether we are allowing this Bill to create an agency or strengthening the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA), we need a situation where, before contesting elections or before taking up an office at whatever level in government, you must go for a drug test.”
“There is one aspect which we need to investigate. Whether we create this agency or strengthen the activities of the NDLEA, we need to do something. We, as politicians; we, as leaders in this country; we, as stakeholders, need to do a lot. We all believe that religiously, both Islam and Christianity, even in our traditional religion, drug abuse is prohibited. but who are those encouraging and supporting it? We cannot achieve the intent of this Bill unless and until we all agree that we will put our heads together with relevant stakeholders to stop drug abuse in Nigeria,” he said.
But when the Deputy Senate President – Senator Barau Jibrin, who presided on the day in question, was to rule on this very serious allegation tendered against most members of the Senate; if not all the members, did not even caution Senator Kawu Sumaila about the weight of allegation. Neither did any other Senator in plenary agitated against the alleged revelation.
All that the Senate Deputy President did was to rule Senator Sumaila out of order like this:
“Order 56: Debate upon any motion, Bill or amendment shall be relevant to such motion. “While we are speaking, while we are contributing, our contributions should be relevant to the subject matter. “In this case, your contribution is not relevant to the subject matter. I, therefore, rule you out of order,” Barau said.
In view of above, which name should be more appropriate for this Senate?
