Today's Leaders Forum Praise 2019: IDEAL LEGISLATURE AND THE CONSTITUENTS : JUXTAPOSITION - SEN.HAMMED THIRMIZZI ARAMIDE P.K.A ARAMED

BEING AN ONLINE LECTURE DELIVERED DURING 19TH PRESENTATION AND DIALOGUE OF TODAY'S LEADERS FORUM TAGGED PRAISE 2019

All doxological eulogy belongs to Almighty Allah, who is the only universal cosmic Intelligence,as such all gratification belongs to the providence for the rarest gift of we being counted among the living souls,most especially with the drive towards living a life poised on core impact, for Gratitude will forever remains the hallmark of greatness.

Having eulogised the Almighty and creator of mankind, it is imperative I give honor and salutations to whom it due to by observing protocols.

My Ever Resilient convener and Board of Admin For TODAY'S LEADERS FORUM

Indomitable  members of  TLF

Unflagging parliamentarians of  the forum

Ever ideological Comrades of  the forum

Pragmatic and Altruistic writers of  the forum

Ever Sagacious judicial members of  the forum

Distinguished leaders

Ladies and gentlemen

All other protocols are scrupulously and meticulously observed.

Permit me to crave our distinguished indulgence most especially our new members to kindly check for all legislative terminologies in the archive of my past presentations so we can quickly capture the scope of today's lecture. 

Prior to taking us through the topic aforementioned which is an Ideal Legislature and the Constituents,it is pertinent I take us back to some basics which I have earlier delivered on this platform. 

SEN.HAMMED THIRMIZZI ARAMIDE P.K.A ARAMED (THE ERSTWHILE SENATE PRESIDENT 5TH ASSEMBLY AND ICON OF THE PARLIAMENT FCAH&PT STUDENTS UNION)

Why? 

Because it is so pivotal we take cognizance on the efficacy cum powers of the legislature, forward hand in hand with the tenets of separation of powers basically because it is key to the workings of any democratic government, as no democratic system exists with an absolute separation of powers or an absolute lack of separation of powers. Governmental powers and responsibilities intentionally overlap; they are too complex and interrelated to be neatly compartmentalized. As a result, there is an inherent measure of competition and conflict among the branches of government. 

However,today's lecture will be laying much emphasis on Legislature as an institution with respect to the Constituents relationship towards enhancing unparalleled excellence and sustainable development in our Country. 

To talk about Legislature as an institution, we can not but get insight on the powers of such institution, which is known as Legislative power. So therefore;

What is Legislative power? 

Legislative power is the authority to make laws, to alter or repeal them And to carry out oversight functions over executive bodies and authorities. 

The Legislature is the supreme part of Government and can thus be regarded as Governmental Sovereign.

 

This is evident to why legislature is a deliberative assembly with the authority to make laws for a political entity such as a country.

Concurrently,legislatures form important parts of most governments; in the separation of powers model, they are often contrasted with the executive and judicial branches of government.

 It should be noted that Laws enacted by legislatures are known as Acts and primary legislation. Legislatures observe and steer governing actions and usually have exclusive authority to amend the bills or budgets involved as part of her proceedings. 

The 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic oF Nigeria vests legislative powers of the Federation including a bi-cameral National Assembly Consisting of a Senate and  a House of Representatives.

These Legislative powers of the National Assembly which is our legislature can be classified into three:

1. Expressed Powers by the Constitution : Express powers are those powers of the legislature that are specifically and provided for in the constitution. These powers are itemized under the constitution and form the basis for the exercise of all other powers of the legislature 

2. Implied Powers Which arises from extensions of the provisions of the Constitution : These are necessary or ancillary powers of the legislature E.g Section 89 of the 1999 Constitution empowers the legislature to procure all such evidence, written or oral, direct or circumstantial as it may think necessary or desirable, and examine all persons as witnesses whose evidence may be material or relevant to the subject matter.

3. Assumed Powers as a result of lacunae in the constitutional provisions : The assumed powers are rights claimed by the legislature which, though not tenable as rights, are not unconstitutional, since there is no provision in the constitution prohibiting them. 

All aforementioned are basically the powers of the legislative arm of government which there are different proceedings at which these powers are been used for stability and development in a democratic gov't. 

However the ultimate Strength of Nigeria  Legislature has been enclosed in the 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria Which is in accordance to Section 4(2)of the constitution that stated as follows:

The National Assembly shall have power to make Laws for the peace, order and good government of the Federation. 

The legislative arm of government is the branch that actually has the right and the power to make Laws ,no other branch of government can make laws ,legislature can make laws on any topic that it wants and this gives the Legislative branch a great deal of Power and strength over other arms of Government.

 As such there must be a true representation of the governed by the representatives of the constituents in order to prevent the wastage of the people's resources by the government under the pretense of taking care or working for the interest of the people. 

This major strength of the legislative arm of government gives the legislators the power to transform the institutions that lock the  country's poor majority into poverty, vulnerability and poor governance and it is imperative any ideological Legislator understand his/her tasks as custodian of the legislative power because Without LAWS,  government cannot govern, we must learn how to transform problematic institutions as legislators . To achieve or do that, that small handful of policy makers who comprise government must channel the behaviour as of swarms of governmental employees and the citizenry at large along desired paths. To influence the behaviours of millions, the legislature must be able to formulate, enact and implement rules to change behaviors with politicians policy declaration. 

"Successive growth  and development cannot be achieved In our political setting and governance, Except with our collective responsibility and resolution to obey law and order". ARAMED 2017'

Having dwell mostly on the importance and efficacy of legislative power towards enhancing sustainable development and steering the wheel for disruptive innovation and innovative ideas to position our nation amongst the developed nations of the world, it is very germane that we take proper representation,involvement and engagement of constituents serious with utmost priority by our legislature, reason why this topic have been chosen to further chase our curiosity even thou we engage in PRAISE for the progress we have made in creating awareness and proper sensitization about the government to the governed. Yet, failure of any legislator to give true and proper representation to his constituents , be it through town hall meetings,briefings ,invitation to public hearing upon sponsoring of bills is indeed a failure of leadership. As it is an established fact that

 "TAXATION WITHOUT CHECKS AND TRUE REPRESENTATION IS TYRANNY"ARAMED 2018'

In an attempt to give insight on an ideal Legislature with her functionality relating to the gargantuan importance in creating an egalitarian society for the citizens,it is imperative to keep abreast on the modules operandi of legislative proceedings for without the adequate Knowledge on how the Legislature  operates, it would be difficult to decipher the real art of Parliament, As such I hereby wish to refer our distinguished listeners and readers to the comprehensive lecture I once delivered on this platform during the 11th Online Dialogue and Presentation for further clarification and well detailed Information towards  Understanding  Legislative arm of Government at glance with respect to executive and judicial functions While this particular lecture will succinctly covers the scope of the topic which is An Ideal Legislature and the Constituents. 

We should know that only few laws specify either direct or roundabout measures to make it likely that officials conform to the law's prescriptions. The higher the officials rank, the more vague and ambiguous become the monitoring and enforcement provisions that address their behaviors.

Very few system regularly monitor senior officials. To sanction perceived unacceptable performance, most have in place only default mechanisms. only in a true democratic society, a system of checks and balances may serve as a defense against arbitrary behaviors by top officials. 

However, in saner clime the parliamentarians are always conscious of their roles with powers while having sincerity of purpose towards the trust placed on them by their constituents, as such apply all necessary precautions with portrayal of true art of parliament to facilitate democratic social change, by enacting effective legislation for the betterment of the people.

 

More so, make good use of the strength which requires the legislators to perform their three law making jobs: enacting legislation,overseeing it's implementation, and communicating with constituents that are the sole reason  of government, this gives the legislator the ultimate strength as they will always have vote of confidence by the people through inclusive engagement with members of their constituents.

This will bring us to what being a Constituent entails with respect to the Legislature.

CONSTITUENTS IN AN IDEAL LEGISLATURE

What do we understand by the word Constituent? 

This is a person who is represented politically by a designated government official or officeholder, especially when the official is one that the person represented has the opportunity to participate in selecting through voting or perhaps through other methods of indicating political confidence and support. 

A Senator's constituency consists of the citizenry who reside within his or her state at the senatorial district usually covers different regions which divides the entire state of such senator. 

The constituency of a Member of the House of Representatives consists  the people who live in his or her district.

More so, the core meaning of the term Constituent has to do with the relationship between the voters and their elected representatives, the term is often expanded somewhat to include other individuals or groups whose interests any official in government (whether elected or not) feels morally obligated (or compelled by the political realities of the situation) to protect or further in the policymaking process. 

In this extended sense of the term not limited to Legislature , Nigerian youths  constitute an important "constituency" for the ministry of youths and sports. 

Decades of normative and empirical research on democratic nation representation has taken up the question of whether the represented actually influence the representatives, and thus whether the representatives are listening to the represented. 

Some suggest legislators operate as “delegates,” directly reflecting the desires of their constituents, while others expect legislators to act as “trustees,” aiming for more opaque alignment with constituents’ preferences. 

Either way, there is an expectation of constituents’ influence to be seen in their representatives’ work, as representatives are elected to be the voice of their constituents in a crowded, competitive government. But while constituents technically retain this power to influence, do they actually impact the work of their representatives? It turns out, the answer is not really.

In measuring  constituents’ preferences, I take a slightly different approach and focus on specific issues. Other approaches tend to make inferences about constituents’ “ideologies” based on their responses to position-specific questions, such as “Do you favor or oppose legalization of homosexualism marriage ?” 

Ideological preferences of constituents are then determined by aggregating  a level of responses to similar questions. 

While valuable, there are numerous assumptions built in to such approaches, including whether or not ideology as a concept even exists (much less whether or not constituents possess it), and whether responses to inherently non-ideological questions (e.g., “favor or oppose”) actually reveal ideological information.

 With such approaches, the result is the researcher placing constituents in ideological space.

My approach  avoids these assumptions by allowing constituents to place themselves in policy space, based on aggregation and stratification of their responses to the “most important problem” question, which has been asked of numerous nationally representative samples over many decades. 

The product is a measure of constituents’ policy preferences on specific issues in relation to many other issues, resulting in a map of stated issue preferences, and assumes nothing of ideology

 

Alan Rosenthal a professor of political science at the Eagleton Institute of Politics at Rutgers.  once said

What do we want our state legislatures of the 21st century to be? 

Of course we want them to be effective, to be good. But we also know that state legislatures will be heavily influenced by forces over which they have little control-technology in particular. 

The challenge is to remain true to the fundamental purposes of representative democracy and the legislative system.

So what is an effective cum ideal Legislature in Relation to the Constituents Expectations?

It's a question, for the most part, that has gone unanswered, and even unattended. And the answer as to what a good legislature is must come from legislators, legislative aides, sworn parliamentarian and concerned citizens.

For legislatures to be effective and purposeful , they must carry out the roles we expect of them in our system of representative democracy. The principal ones are checks and balancing of power, representing constituencies and enactment of good laws. In considering whether legislatures are doing their job (and hence are good), we have to examine how well they are performing these three functions.

Now let's take a look at Checks and Balancing of Power Constitutionally, legislatures are separate, coequal branches (indeed, the legislature is the first branch of government and the executive the second) that share governmental power. So it follows that legislatures must balance the power of the Executive leaders of the country . A good legislature, accordingly, has to be relatively independent of the president or Governor. 

It must insist on participating in the initiation of policy and refuse to rubber-stamp executive proposals unlike the recent uproar over the high speed passage of the Nigerian 2020 Appropriation bills by the National Assembly which generated lots of controversies among the citizenry, thereby making the 9th Senate Presidential being referred to as Rubber Stamp SP of the Executive by the media space. Well, why won't such happens when a whooping #37B was approved for  renovation of the National Assembly as a core priority in a nation making effort on the realisation of economic recovery, this is an act which could be tantamount to a misplaced priority or an attempt to keep wasting the Commonwealth of the citizenry.

It should be noted that Any gov't which the Legislative and Executive relation keeps moving smoothly without any disciplinary measures over breach or stampede to the rule of law and poor execution of projects or policy coupled with mismanagement of resources, will definitely suffer failure of leadership with stunted economic growth which will bring such nation into disrepute amongst comity of Nation. 

Alas, it takes serious attitudinal change, sincerity of purpose and new rewired mindsets of the legislators to really sanitize the system with legislative powers which ceteris paribus is the bedrock of democracy rather than portraying it as the destruction of our democracy.  

CONSTITUENCY REPRESENTATION

One of the major roles of a legislature is Representation-

Representing various constituencies, mainly people in each lawmaker's electoral district, but also organized groups and individuals elsewhere in the state. The question is, how well does the legislature perform its representational duties. 

Firstly, the constitutional system and the legislature ought to provide for substantial political equality, that is, "one person, one vote." This standard, enforced by state and federal courts, is generally met, although the political gerrymandering that accompanies redistricting is often used to benefit one party and incumbents in their reelection efforts.

More so, as part of its representational function, the legislature must provide service to constituencies and constituents. Constituent service is normally the job of individual members who appreciate the importance of doing a good job in this area either for the betterment of the constituents or purpose of reelection. 

Some of the pivotal Service for the constituents includes responding to constituents' requests for information, help and case work, as well as taking care of the district's interests with respect to state-aid formulas, local projects and public expenditures.

Concurrently, the legislature has to ensure the citizenry , as well as groups, have access to members, to committees, especially standing committees of the house for airing their suggestions and input towards formulation of good policy and to the general process. 

The legislature must be open just like the Leadership of the Nigerian 8th Assembly set a clear record as the 2018 NASS Open was observed which gave an insight to the general public on the dealings and process of our legislature and equally promoted Constituents - Legislative relation with widening of the constituents horizon.

Also, the Legislature must be able to provide information on agendas and proceedings using legislatures' outreach effort.

Secondly, the legislature also has huge responsibility for civic education, especially on representative democracy, the legislative institution and the legislative process. In order to provide civic education to the constituents, legislatures have to tell the public it is their job to represent diverse constituencies, various interests and differing values, and it is their role to engage in conflict resolution, build consensus and promote peaceful and inclusive societies for sustainable development, provide access to justice for all and build effective, accountable and inclusive strong institutions at all levels in order for the Citizens to have a sense of what representative democracy entails if they are to participate and advocate responsibly.

Importantly, the legislature has to be responsive, at least to some degree, to what constituents want, as well as to what the legislature determines they need. 

Assuming that responsiveness is part of the representational function, we have to figure out how legislative enactments -at least on major issues with public demands and with public needs. 

For instance issue of budgeting is really a national concern in which the Constituents must be involved and carry along for accountability, transparency and inclusiveness in gov't to enhance growth and progress. Having said that, this will take us to speedily talk about Budget in a glance to tell us how indispensable it is to both the gov't and the governed.

BUDGET

The government budget is a very important tool of economic management and promoting growth and development. A national budgetary proposal is usually made for the year succeeding each fiscal year. 

The proposal comprises the financial allocations both recurrent and capital to all projects and activities of the ministries, Agencies and parastatals of gov't. Impact of Legislature on the budgeting process of the Nation can not be over emphasized as According to the Section 81 of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria stated that " The President shall cause to be prepared and laid before each house of the National Assembly at any time in each financial year estimates of the revenues and expenditure of the federation for the next following financial year"

Now what is Revenue? 

Government Revenue can simply be described as the amount of money that government makes within a fiscal year which is January 1 to December 31St. The gov't raises revenue through 3main sources which are oil and gas revenue to the federation account, tax and duty such as customs duty, company income tax, and value added tax, and other revenue from companies maintained by Government. 

While Government Expenditure can simply be described as the amount of money that the government spends from January 1 to December 31.

This can be categorized into three groups namely: Statutory transfers, debt service and MDA expenditure according to CBN, 2015.

Now, let's look into the legal and regulatory framework.

There are a set of laws and regulations, at different levels of hierarchy, for budgeting preparations process, at the apex, there is the 1999 Constitution as amended in particular, Sections 59,80-82 and the second schedule, parts 1 and II. 

The finance control and management Act CAP F26 2004 and the Fiscal Responsibility Act FRA 2007 Complement the constitution at the level of legislation in our Legislature.

Roles of Legislature in budgeting are so germane to national development in reality and here is why I'd like to acknowledge the effort of the 8th Assembly for the legacy to Institutionalized Public hearing on the appropriation bill as part of the budget enactment process. 

This derives from the realisation that CONSTITUENTS are critical stakeholders in nation building. The committee of supply is to receive, debate and consider the clauses contained in the report capturing critical component of budget documents.

For example according to the report of the 2019 Budget in Nigerian Economy, it shows that macroeconomic stability has been largely achieved. We are still holding our 2019 growth projection at 3.01% pending end of Q3.

 

Growth is however projected to be around 2.93% in 2020.

Real GDP increased from 1.89% in Q1 of 2018 to 2.10% in the first quarter of 2019, the strongest first quarter growth since 2015 and 1.94% in Q2 2019;Half

year 2019 cumulative GDP growth rate is 2.02%.

 

Significant growth in the non-oil sector of 2.47% was recorded in Q1 2019, up from 0.76% in Q1 2018. Growth in the sector however moderated to 1.64% in Q2 2019.

The contribution of the non-oil sector to GDP increased from 90.4% in Q1 2018 to 90.9% in Q1 2019 and 91.18% in Q2 2019.

Employment growth usually slows down during recession and takes some time to recover.

Therefore, it is not surprising that the National Bureau ofStatistics data shows that unemployment and underemployment remain high in Nigeria, at 23.1% and 20.1% respectively as at Q3 2018.

We expect more diversified and inclusive growth over the medium-term,and reduction in the rate of unemployment, as we continue to implement the priority policies and programmes that will boost inclusive growth.

Although, Mr President has strongly indicated that in this second term, employment generation will remain a key focus. Hence, the 2020 Budget of Sustained growth & Job Creation. 

Making Law in relation with the Constituents Although representing others deals with the relations between the legislature and the public, lawmaking is internally focused. It relates to the processes by which laws (and policies) are fashioned.

Lawmaking includes several related legislative activities. 

The legislative role in formulating, reviewing and adopting a state budget has special significance. The budget is probably the most important bill that a legislature passes. A legislature that performs poorly on the budget is likely to be an ineffective legislature overall.

The legislature's oversight role is also worth considering; that is, how and to what extent does the legislature monitor the application and effect of the laws it has enacted.

 

Finally, we should pay some attention to legislative foresight; that is, how and to what extent the legislature looks ahead in order to develop policies to meet the future needs of the state.

What should we expect of the lawmaking process?

First, it is important that CONSTITUENTS and groups have an opportunity to participate in the lawmaking enterprise as it takes place within the legislature. 

Diverse perspectives and positions on issues from both organized groups and unorganized individuals should be welcome. Lobbyists, accordingly, are an integral part of the process. (The importance of participation, however, is not meant to suggest that direct democracy, by means of the initiative and referendum, is a desirable feature of the lawmaking process.)

Secondly, the participation that counts most is that by legislators themselves. If a legislature is to perform its lawmaking function well, members must be able to play a role. Not every member, however, will choose to be active on every issue; some are better equipped and better positioned than others. Internal democracy requires that within the senate and house power be relatively dispersed.

Still, standing committees are key agencies and some legislators play larger legislative roles by virtue of their committee assignments (or because of their interests or abilities). 

Not only do chairmen exercise leadership, but the rank and file of both the majority and minority parties also may have influence at the committee stage of the process. 

In a number of states the party caucus is another locus of member influence. There issues are hashed out and party positions on legislation are developed. Internal democracy also requires that members have basic parliamentary rights.

Although legislatures are essentially democratic bodies, with members substantially equal to one another, some members are "more equal than others." These are normally the elected and appointed leaders. Strong leadership, particularly at the level of the presiding officer, is essential if the legislative process is to work well.

 This requires individuals with strategic, problems solving and consensus -building abilities- people who exercise primary responsibility for the functioning of the legislative process and the maintenance of the institution.

More so, the processes of legislative decision making may be more or less partisan in nature. If the legislative parties are cohesive, the majority probably will play the decisive role on important issues, such as the budget. The majority party caucus will be a principal forum for deciding key issues.

 But the minority must also be accorded parliamentary rights. If the majority lacks cohesion, or has a major danger is that if partisanship is too heavily weighted in the process, minority members may find themselves almost completely shut out, the only role remaining to them that of mischief maker. 

Unrestrained partisanship can damage civility and undermine the legislature as a working institution, further eroding the trust and confidence the public has in it. The conduct of the legislative parties, therefore, merits close scrutiny.

It is worthy of note that, deliberation is an important feature of the legislative process. It necessitates a give- and-take and an exchange of information and ideas. Deliberation provides the possibility that a number of legislators will be influenced by the discussion. 

The deliberative process is not restricted to the debate (or lack thereof) that goes on at the second reading stage on the senate and house floor.

It is also a vital element of committee activity and continues in the frequent and unstructured exchanges in members' offices, leadership conferences, at lunch, and in the corridors of the state house or legislative office building. Deliberation as a standard is central to the very idea of a legislature.

Conclusively all aforementioned processes not only work to make laws, they are also intended to address obstacles facing the state. If legislative processes are not related to state needs, they cannot entirely fulfill the expected lawmaking function. Ideally, we expect legislatures to solve problems and improve conditions in the state. At the very least, legislatures have to address problems to enhance dividends of democracy.

Facilitating Factors

Two sets of factors contribute substantially to the ability of a legislature to perform well. One can be called capacity, the other institutionalism.

Capacity in the broadest sense is the resources, the wherewithal for the legislature to do its job. In the parlance of legislative reform, the amount of time in session and in the interim period, the size of the professional staff, the adequacy of facilities and technology add up to legislative capacity. How much staff is needed?

 

How should it be organized? Is a full-time legislature better than a part-time one?

Questions like these deserve attention, although I doubt that the answers are the same in every place. Whether the legislature is more professional or more amateur may not be critical either. Just what combination of resources or how much of each type is optimum or sufficient probably varies from state to state.

A vital part of a legislature's capacity is the quality of the legislators themselves. In considering quality, we have to deal with the issue of professional versus citizen legislators that is, those who are relatively full-time careerists on the one hand and those who are essentially part and short timers on the other. In just about every legislature, some of each type exist.

Quality also applies to the personal characteristics of legislators, and especially of legislative leaders. 

The integrity, or the ethics, of the legislature is an integral part of capacity. 

Although we do not define legislative goodness strictly in terms of the ethical behavior of members, the ethics of the capitol community and the type and enforcement of ethics laws are among the factors that affect how legislators function.

 

Legislatures characterized by integrity are likely to do better than those where the ethical conduct of members is over the line or too near the line.

 

Legislative integrity in deed and in spirit matters not only to the public, but also to the overall ability of the legislature to fulfill its representational responsibilities.

Institutionalism is related to a combination of factors that pertain to a legislator's identification with the senate or the house and with the legislature as a political institution. Three of the most important ones are concern, community and continuity.

Concern has to do with a sense of, identification with, or dedication to the legislature, all of which are likely to promote the performance of balancing power and making law. 

For a legislature to be good, it needs members who care about its well-being and who engage in institutions building activities (or at least do not engage in activities that are institutionally harmful or destructive).

 

Members who are institutionally inclined will defend the legislature against criticism they believe unjust and will discourage colleagues from running against the institution in order to win office.

Community encompasses the culture and norms of the legislature. It requires some level of agreement on the need for civility and some manifestation of collegiality.

Continuity is probably as important to institutionalism as anything else. 

Some continuity of membership and staff not only provides for greater knowledge and skill on the parts of lawmakers, but it promotes institutional values. It takes a while for most new members to identify with and develop concern for the legislature as an institution that merits their support.

My Submissions

For an ideal Legislature with core values towards achieving the purposeful wants of all constituents as true representative with sincerity of purpose, the country's institutions must be sanitized and strengthened as the institutions are the determinant of the relative wealth, development, progress, peace and income levels of the Country's population and quality of governance. As such in the race to change the institutions that define a country's vulnerability and quality of governance, the legislature must be driven by government of laws and not of men through governance by rule, Accountability, transparency with participation.

CONCLUSION

In enactment of effective laws to maintain an ideal Legislature for the benefit and protection of the constituents commonwealth's, it's pivotal, legislation must build not on dreams and visions, but on concrete, real circumstances around the constituents.

 

Most importantly, the constituents must see themselves as an important stakeholders, thereby be proactive and consistent in holding their representative accountable whenever the need arises, engaging the legislators not on individual or sentimental requests but rather on intellectual discuss towards legislative process  which will aid the sustainable development and growth of the country with identifying of social problems and provision of sustainable panacea collectively.

Thank you all for listening!