Nigeria Content Online

The Action Congress
of Nigeria (ACN) at the weekend threatened to take federal lawmakers to
court if they amend parts of the electoral law to make themselves
automatic members of the National Executive Council (NEC) of political
parties.

Describing it as a
new manifestation of efforts by lawmakers to make laws in their interest
rather than in the national interest, the party’s National Publicity
Secretary, Lai Mohammed, said it was becoming clear that, as far as the
dominant PDP members of the National Assembly are concerned, the
interest of their party is the same as the interest of the nation.

The party however
called on other political parties to mount a legal challenge against
what it tagged, “the obnoxious, self-serving, greedy and
democracy-killing proposed insertion into the Electoral Act 2010.” The
party also called on labour, civil society organizations and political
parties to march on the National Assembly “to ensure such
anti-democratic law is not passed.” Mr Mohammed described the ongoing
amendment effort as the most expensive and anti people ever in Nigeria’s
history, saying it is time to stop federal lawmakers from ruining the
democracy that millions of Nigerians fought to entrench.

“Our legislators are the highest paid in the world, with those of Kenya a distant second,” he said. “Yet, they never consulted
us before padding their pay to such high levels. The widespread story
is that each of them earns a million naira per day, except on weekends
and public holidays! This is not far from the truth, since each one
smiles home with 45 million Naira per quarter, in a country where most
citizens live on less than US$1 a day, and the minimum wage being fought
for comes to US$4 per day! Add this to the fact that while it took 3%
of the national budget to service the National Assembly in the Second
Republic, the current National Assembly is gulping over 30% of the
national budget and one will get an idea of how these legislators are
draining the economy. If they dispute the figures quoted above, they
should tell Nigerians what they earn and what percentage of the national
budget is being used to service the National Assembly.”

Implications

The party said that
the proposed law offends the constitution, stifles the ability of the
parties to make their own constitutions and decide who attends their
executive councils and shows how those elected to serve the people
cannot differentiate between the interest of the PDP from the majority
in both chambers of the National Assembly, and the country.

“The proposed law will also make the lawmakers – in the case of the
PDP more than 300 National Assembly members’ gate crashing into the NEC
– the single biggest bloc in the NECs of the parties. Then, the
dictatorship of lawmakers would have been entrenched, with dangerous
consequences for all,” Mr. Mohammed said.