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.
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