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The senate deputy leader, Victor Ndoma-Egba, has risen in
defence of the National Assembly over allegations of profligacy, saying the
civil service and not the legislature consumes most of the the nation’s wealth.

In a veiled reference to claims by the governor of the Central
Bank of Nigeria, Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, that the National Assembly takes home a
greater part of the nation’s income, the re-elected senator said the civil
service consumes more.

He called for a review of public expenditure at all levels so
that more money is available for investment in infrastructure, social service,
health care and industrialisation.

“I do not think that the National Assembly is consuming the
wealth of this nation more than any other group,” he said. “Check the
parastatals, main civil service and local government councils; they consume
more. Every office has overhead costs. When you add these together every month,
you discover that civil servants consume more of the nation’s resources.”

Continuity in service

On the just-concluded general elections in the country, Mr
Ndoma-Egba said the high rate of attrition in the National Assembly is
affecting robust legislation, as fresh lawmakers find it difficult to catch up
with their older colleagues on thorny issues.

“[The] high turnover of senators in this country affects
lawmaking as newcomers start from the scratch, finding it difficult to catch up
with their senior colleagues,” he said. “The senate in the USA is stable
because it does not experience such a huge number of new members, despite the
biennial conduct of legislative elections in that country.” He recommended that
senators be allowed to spend more years at the National Assembly to gain
experience in lawmaking for the good of the country, as having a new crop of
senators every four years negatively impacts on administration at the federal
level.

Mr Ndoma-Egba said, although parliamentary bodies the world over
are bolstered by the equality of their members, irrespective of the spread of
their constituencies, the experience of older members is what keeps that arm of
government moving so that it does not fall short of expectations nor become a
rubber stamp for the executive.

The senator, who has just secured a third mandate, sees his
re-election as victory for history.

“This is the first time a senator from Cross River State will be
doing a third term at the National Assembly, but I am not the first from the
Niger Delta to be so elected. James Manager is older than me at the senate. He
is also from the Niger Delta,” he said.

Fair elections, but…

He described the recent elections as transparent, orderly and
fair; and asked INEC to correct the lapses it noticed in the 2011 exercise
since the country’s democracy is still growing.

“If INEC had an arrangement whereby accredited voters exercise
their franchise immediately, more people would have come out to participate,”
he said. “In rural communities of Cross River State where the inhabitants are
predominantly farmers, they find it difficult to wait for many hours after
being accredited before voting,” he said.

Mr Ndoma-Egba, who said it was a challenge for him to convince his kinsmen,
who are mainly farmers, to get accredited and wait for some hours before
voting, advised INEC to develop a new voting system that would ensure Nigerians
vote immediately after accreditation and leave for their homes or farms.