Given that a legislative house called Akwa Ibom State House of Assembly never existed anywhere until January 20, 1992 when it was inaugurated, that arm of the state government clocks 25 years in 2017. But it would be wrong to measure its height with the measurement ruler of 25 years in that it has not really lived for full 25 years.
The Akwa Ibom State House of Assembly died at its infancy, precisely on November 17, 1993, along other democratic institutions in Nigeria, following the seizure of power by Sani Abacha; it was ironic in that Abacha, as Secretary of Defence then, was the man whom former military President Ibrahim Babangida, ostensibly retained to defend Ernest Shonekan-led interim government from invasion of soldiers, Nigeria’s age-long antagonists of democracy, after Babangida was forced by galvanized forces in the Nigerian civil society to step aside after annulling June 12 1993 presidential election won by his civilian ally and business mogul, Moshood Abiola.
The Akwa Ibom State House of Assembly reincarnated in 1999 – a credit to Abdulsalami Abubakar, the second Nigerian military politician after Olusegun Obasanjo, that kept to promise of returning Nigeria’s political power to their civilian counterparts. Since 1999 power – not electric power but political power – has never for a second blinked let alone interrupted. In fact, since then a number of those who seized power through the barrel of gun have not only got baptized into civilian politicking but have been calling the shot in the political kingdom, even as they have not confessed their sins or shown any sign of turning away from dictatorship to full embrace of democracy.
History would not be treated with honesty if the life of Akwa Ibom State House of Assembly is counted from 1999 and if that is done the ancestors and the posterity may hold the present in perennial contempt. So, the idea of Akwa Ibom State House of Assembly being 18 in 2017 is unthinkable as it is unfathomable. The Akwa Ibom State House of Assembly is in deed 25 in 2017. Twenty-five may be not be quite much in matters of numeration but it is certainly no mean number in matters of years. The rolling out of drums recently in celebration of the Akwa Ibom State House of Assembly should better be appreciated from the significances of its silver age.
The Akwa Ibom State House of Assembly has leapfrogged many in terms of political profiling as well as fabulous eking out of living. Many have gone from Uyo to Abuja. Through politics and business of lawmaking many have dumb their wooden and plastic spoons in the dustbin and now feed their families with silver spoons even before the legislature got to silver age. Effiong Bob, who had been a two-term senator, had held the position of the deputy speaker in the first Assembly; Ita Enang, President Muhammadu Buhari’s Senate liaison officer and the only known Nigerian that has gone through the four rungs of legislative houses in the country, had his tutelage in legislative rules and business in the assembly between 1992 and 1993; Nelson Effiong, currently representing Eket Senatorial District in the Senate, was once Speaker of the Akwa Ibom State House of Assembly.
Since independence in 1960, the life of Nigeria’s legislature has been more in peril than progress on account of pangs of parliamentary predicament precipitated by putsches by the military politicians. While the executive and the judiciary always exist the parliament ceases to exist the moment the politicians in khaki uniforms took power. 18 years after the military have been confined to their barracks the remnant of the military era is still looming large in the polity as it has affected the psyche of parliamentarians to a point of becoming appendages of the executives, and since 1999 the state legislative houses across the country have been the worst hit. At the state level, the political class is often basking in the euphoria of celebrated sycophancy, voices of opposition political parties starts and ends within electioneering period, the civil society movement functions more as fan club of the government of the day and gets rewarded with doles and where a wing of the civil society dared to differ it got ostracized such that the rest of the society, including its natural allies treat them as taboos. And so, the respective governors reminisce the reign of emperors, which has been thought to have been kept in the dark past of history. This is why the Houses of Assembly give express passage to bills that the governors stand to make bounty reaps either politically or socially or economically or all of the above.
It would be self-delusion to say that the Akwa Ibom State House of Assembly has not been inflicted by the contagious virus of state legislatures across the country being at the beck and call of successive state governors in the states, particularly since 1999. In the eyes of this writer, it was the 5th Akwa Ibom Assembly that one could see some semblance of vibrancy not because of its leadership but largely due radicalism of the likes of Bassey Etienam, Onofiok Luke, Kufre Etuk and perhaps gender persuasions of the troika of Ekaete Ebong Okon, Alice Ekpenyong and Owoidighe Ekpoattai.
Luke, the current speaker of the assembly, has since 2011 that he was first elected into the legislature demonstrated in certain ways model qualities of representative of the people, especially through welfare programmes he has been initiating for his constituents, effecting of infrastructural projects to his Nsit Ubium Constituency and life-touching bills he has been sponsoring in the legislative house. Coupled with his antecedent of being a celebrated Student Union President at the University of Uyo, his touch of bonhomie and charisma, his socialite disposition and being a core Uyo boy through and through, he has had perceptional reckoning as a populist within the populace of Akwa Ibom and its environs. But it would wrong to rely on the public perception of the speaker to say that the Akwa Ibom State House of Assembly under his watch has had “silver lining” or “milestone in legislative excellence”.
If democracy is worth valuing as having its anchor and core values in the people and the legislature is rightfully reckoned as the power house of democracy then the acceptable parameter for appraising the parliament should be on how what filters out from the House is agreeable to popular demands and have potency of surviving thorough public scrutiny. Can the Akwa Ibom State House of Assembly under the leadership of Luke fits into being exemplary on this estimation? The recent express nod given by the House to Governor Udom Emmanuel to build a lodge in Lagos in billions of naira for the purpose of lodging prospective investors to Akwa Ibom offers a ready litmus test for such appraisal. Further, the speaker’s assertion at one of the events in the week-long 25th anniversary celebration that the State legislature is not rubber stamp but “iron stamp” is tempting many to jump into conclusion that even after 25 years of existence there is no silhouette of silver lining in the Akwa Ibom State House of Assembly.
But provided politicians embraced democratic culture and allowed it to get naturally develop in the system an ideal democracy is not rocket science. This writer can readily recommend quintuplets means to achieving it within no distant time: breaking of the governors’ hedgemony in the states, ensuring supremacy of political parties over its elected and appointed official in government, internal democracy in the political parties, credible elections and impeccable judiciary.
. Ekanem writes from nsikak4media@gmail.com.