And then there were none (for change)

Change is one of the most popular or overused words in any political campaign and Nigeria’s 2011 elections were no different. The airwaves, paper-waves and Internet-waves made it seem like the mere deafening strength of the clamour for change would be enough to force the universe to shift in our favour. It seemed like we all wanted a change: of those who represent us in government, our electoral process and the ruling party.

The inaugurations are done, the last rounds of elections and coronations in the legislature have been discharged with and the victory party planners have hopefully collected their fees. As the haze of election fever and winner euphoria is lifting and we are beginning to see a little more clearly; where is the change?

The presidency has remained pretty much the same– a PDP president who made lots of compromises and promises to win, surrounded by purely motive based advisors and a soon to be constituted cabinet which is rumoured to be more old than new.

The judiciary of course remains untouched by elections. Apart from the whispers of personal financial gain from election petitions, something which sadly not even our latest super hero the FOI Law will be able to do anything about, there is no discernable change for the benefit of the public.

That leaves the legislature; the only arm of government that seems to have undergone serious change with over 70% of the members being new to the National Assembly. In the Senate, 73 out of 109 are brand new and in the House of Representatives 266 out of 360 have never been in the House before. There is something about new people in government that infuses the public with hope especially when we are so aware of the antecedents of the old. For the Senate though, the change seems to end there – they are firmly in the hand of the old guard and their buzz word is neither change nor the ‘transformation’ ofPresident Jonathan, it is ‘continuity’.

This leaves within the legislature, the House of Representatives, where the recent coup against PDP interference in the selection of a Speaker bolsters our hope for change. (We’ll worry about the motives of the financiers of the coup later – for now we are just pleased that ‘zoning’ is taking a beating.) And for now, the tune from the House is pleasing: that it will not be business as usual. But it is too soon to say whether the unusual business that our Representatives will be about, will be the business which is good for us or the business which will be good for them and the few they serve.

Despite the picture of self service which a ‘welfare committee’ evokes, the creation of five new committees by the House is encouraging especially since there is a Media and Public Relations committee to hopefully manage all the bad press the House has gotten recently with Dimeji Bankole and the missing billions. However, it is this story of corruption in the House that tells us more clearly than anything else, that nothing has really changed beneath the thin cover of ‘new members’ and the sudden and convenient independence from PDP.

Bankole, the former Speaker who has been a guest of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, while singing for his freedom implicated the new Speaker – Aminu Tambuwal as one of the architects who designed the need for the 10 billion Naira loan in the first place and who is a key beneficiary of the loan (Tambuwal’s allowance allegedly increased by N14 million a quarter). It turns out Tambuwal is not so new after all and it remains to be seen how much change he is going to bring to the House in the execution of its duties.

Ironically, as Bankole completed his term with the corruption charges hanging over his head, Patricia Etteh who he replaced after her impeachment for corruption was cleared of all wrong doing.

It looks like the change we can expect from our legislatures, is not iron clad and so we need to support them by being loud and clear about some of the things we expect from them. For starters, that welfare committee of the House should have a twin in the Senate and they should focus their attention on the welfare of Nigerians with a review their benefits, allowances, compensation, salary, constituency mobilisation fees – whatever names they want to call what they get - we cannot afford them. The Governor of the Central Bank, Sanusi Lamido called them out publicly on their cost to the nation and they have no defence – they need to cut their benefits now. Then they should kill, quarter, burn and bury all thoughts of creating more states – we cannot afford those either. Instead the National Assembly needs to sit with the Constitution and make changes which will empower the local governments and reduce the powers of the state governors over local government revenue. The ‘development’ we sorely need is not the development of new Governors Lodges in glorified villages, we need to give the local governments, those closest to the people, the resources to carry out their duties.

And finally, we need our representatives to portray the dignity and humility of those who are there to labour on our behalf and not flash their ostentatious and rags to riches lives in front of us. At one of the many swearing-in parties held for members of the National Assembly last week, guests at a party carelessly stepped on and broke the glass plates which were used to serve them. No one paid any mind. Those broken plates, so carelessly stepped on signify the waste and carelessness with which our elected and appointed representatives treat Nigeria’s resources and the indifference with which we, the public, encourage the waste. All in all, not a good harbinger of the change we desperately need – let us hope those nonchalantly broken plates are not a sign of what to expect from the 7^th National Assembly.