All the sordid revelations about constituency projects following Senator Abdul Ningi’s outburst concerning the 2024 Budget are pointers to the fact the National Assembly had not only departed from its core functions, most of the members think and believe that pursuing constituency projects is the only thing that qualifies them to be lawmakers. And what to do? Everything must be done to wean them of such mentality and point it out plainly to prospective lawmakers that following the theory of separation of power, while the executive rules and provides amenities, the legislative arm is to make laws and check the excesses of the executive arm while the judiciary adjudicates.
The National Assembly constitutionally makes laws and acts as checks and balances on the executive and judiciary.
Its responsibilities do not include awarding or executing contracts under the guise of constituency projects. They are not to begin to hijack and exercise executive functions. They are not to even share executive functions with the Executive. In the same manner, the Executive is not supposed to dictate to the lawmakers as regards their legislative and oversight functions.
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With an annual budget of N100 billion, the Zonal Intervention Projects, known as constituency projects, were established by the Olusegun Obasanjo administration (1999-2007) with the hope of bringing the government closer to the people. But the initiative has evolved into a cesspool of corruption.
Ironically, the same former President Obasanjo, who had become so scandalised, later described the National Assembly as a “den of corruption….” In a viral old video, Obasanjo was last week captured launching an attack on the National Assembly, describing it as a “den of corruption”, which is occupied by “unarmed robbers”.
He said: “The National Assembly cabal of today is worse than any cabal that anybody may find anywhere in our national governance system at any time. Members of the National Assembly pay themselves allowances for staff and offices they do not have or maintain. Once you are a member, you are co-opted and your mouth is stuffed with rottenness and corruption that you cannot opt out as you go home with not less than N15 million a month for a senator and N10 million a month for a member of the House of Representatives. The National Assembly is a den of corruption occupied by a gang of unarmed robbers.
“Most of them conduct themselves and believe that they are not answerable to anybody. They are blatant in their misbehaviour, cavalier in their misconduct and arrogant in the misuse of parliamentary immunity as a shield against reprisals for their irresponsible acts of malfeasance and/or outright banditry. What of the so-called constituency projects, which is a veritable source of corruption? These constituency projects are spread over the budget for members of the National Assembly, for which they are the initiators and the contractors directly or by proxy and money would be fully drawn with the project only partially executed or not executed at all.
“The National Assembly budget process is not only carried out in an opaque and corruptive manner, but also in a grossly unconstitutional manner. Hence, our lawmakers are lawbreakers. They are the accused, the prosecutor, the defenders and the judge in their own case. We should not continue to live with the impunity and corruption of the National Assembly. Yes, I believe that something can and should be done.
“The president should ride on the crest of the popularity of what is happening in the judiciary to set up a highly technical team of incorruptible investigators to look into the so-called constituency projects of the past and the present and bring culprits to book. The president has overall responsibility and accountability for any fund appropriated under his watch. There would be many such projects and the National Assembly would try to frustrate such necessary investigation. But the project sites are known and the magnitude of funds voted for them are known. The investigation will reveal the true situation.”
Obasanjo said when he was in office, he attempted to audit the account of the National Assembly but he was frustrated. He wondered why the legislative arm of government had chosen not to be transparent with the nation’s budget.
A newspaper editorial said: “The distasteful revelations that the National Assembly padded the 2024 federal budget by N3 trillion and awarded over N500 million contracts to members under the opaque and corruption-ridden constituency projects marks another nadir in the looting of the public treasury. At a time when millions of Nigerians are facing privation instigated by the reforms introduced by the Bola Tinubu administration, it is immoral and indefensible for NASS members, as the people’s representatives, to expropriate a humongous part of the budget for themselves. Tinubu should stop this daylight heist if he is serious about curbing public graft.”
The illegal constituency projects are a drainpipe by which trillions had been siphoned by National Assembly members through contractors and other fronts. As a lawmaker that had spent almost 25 years in the assembly, Ningi’s allegations may not all be dismissed with a mere wave of the hand, especially when he claimed that more than N3 trillion could not be traced in the national budget. According to him, the humongous amount was not tied to specific projects.
While defending the stance of his colleagues in their chamber, Senator Adeola Solomon, who chairs the Appropriation Committee, analysed the budget details with some revelations which Nigerians should also look into. Solomon, popularly known as Yayi, said the two documents (of the budget) were shared to the 109 senators in the senate “and contained in these documents under the Vol 1 paragraphs 2, 3 and 4 is the breakdown of the N28.77 trillion budget that was passed and from paragraphs 7, 8 are the breakdown of the budget, which is called the budget details of the entire Ministries, Departments and Agencies. And when you add these figures together as contained in these documents for the entire MDAs, it comes to N25.4 trillion. There are agencies of government whose budgets and their details are not in these documents because they are statutory agencies and their monies are on frontline charge.”
He listed the agencies as the judiciary, National Assembly, Tertiary Education Trust Fund, State Universal Basic Education Board, Independent National Electoral Commission, North East Development Commission, Niger Delta Development Commission and government-owned enterprises, adding: “When you add all of these together, it gives you N3.221 trillion and when you add to the N25.4 trillion, it gives you N28.77 trillion.”
Solomon went ahead to say that it was not a new thing. He showed copies of the last three budgets that were passed in 2021, 2022, 2023, where he said all the details of the agencies he mentioned were not contained in the documents. He went to the details to fault Ningi who acted on the report of the consultants he hired to scrutinise the 2024 budget. The consultants hired by Ningi picked the documents and came out smoking that they could only find details of N25.14 trillion. So it may be difficult to determine Ningi’s mind for what he did. The Bauchi senator who had almost become an ancestor in the assembly that was supposed to know the process, decided to play the devil’s advocate or just displayed ignorance. He came out to say that though N28.77 trillion was passed as the 2024 Budget, only N25.4 trillion could be accounted for. It is apparent that he might have failed to clinch the same mouthwatering figures that his colleagues got as their own constituency projects and then decided to bring down the roof.
Another colleague who chose not to make a noise about his own loss of a slot even as a ranking senator is Jarigbe Agom Jarigbe (PDP-Cross River North). While he bemoaned his loss during plenary, he alleged that ranking senators got N500 million each in the 2024 budget for constituency projects, while other senators got between N75 million and N200 million.
Indicting his colleagues while exposing the rot in the federal parliament during plenary, Jarigbe said: “If we want to go into those issues, all of us are culpable. Some senators here, so-called senior senators, got N500 million each. I am a ranking senator, I didn’t get. Did I go to the press? Most of you got.”
BudgIT, a civic-tech non-profit organisation, said the National Assembly inserted 7,447 constituency projects worth N2.24 trillion into the 2024 budget. The organisation said most of the projects have “no national significance but narrowed to personal interests”.
Despite conclusive evidence from the Independent Corrupt Practices and other related offences Commission indicating that the constituency projects are simply an avenue for the plundering of public funds, it said “it is shocking and disappointing that successive presidents have continued to turn a blind eye to this criminal looting of the treasury”.
The retention of the Zonal Intervention Projects, aka constituency projects, in the budget is a form of corruption. It is used to divert scarce public resources to private pockets through spurious projects awarded to cronies and fronts. It has resulted in essential infrastructure projects being delayed or never completed, leading to a lack of basic services such as roads, schools and healthcare facilities
According to the ICPC, N529.69 billion was recovered in cash and N1.55 trillion was recovered in assets, totalling a conservative figure of N2.08 trillion from the 703 of 1,377 preselected projects tracked in 21 states between 2019 and 2022. The agency cited other areas of infractions where lawmakers allegedly awarded contracts to themselves, children, or proxy companies. The public bears the brunt as the projects usually hardly add value. Often, the funds cannot be properly accounted for.
Former President Muhammadu Buhari lamented that there was nothing to show for the N1 trillion allocated for constituency projects in the 10 years to 2018. Because of their interest, lawmakers slashed a provision of N70.4 billion for the Federal Ministry of Works and Housing to restore flood-damaged roads to N11.5 billion and diverted the rest to constituency projects.
The constituency projects allocated to the leadership of the Ninth Senate were removed and diverted to the leadership of the 10th Senate. In one case, a ranking senator diverted the construction of police barracks to his own constituency! Lawmakers continue to justify inserting irrelevant projects like town halls, TV viewing centres and boreholes that properly should be under the purview of local governments.
In 2021, a lawmaker from Adamawa State revealed that each Member of the House of Representatives received N100 million for constituency projects. This was reportedly increased to N150 million in August. But lawmakers are not contractors or the executive. It is scandalous that during an economic downturn, lawmakers insist on self-serving irrelevancies.
Recently, another lawmaker from Delta State said he got over N1 billion worth of constituency projects in the 2024 Budget. Perhaps, that is the grouse of the Ningis of this world, which made him “scatter” everything.
The lawmakers should be reminded that the essence of their election into the legislative house is to make sound laws for the entire country, not to hide under constituency projects and plunder the economy. The polity too has a lot to do by disabusing the notion held by the public that Nigerian lawmakers have some money making machine or shrine in their hallowed chamber that always pushes them to give everything just to get in there.
Nigerians lawmakers should face their job to improve on the quality of the laws they make for the populace. That is the only way to wash their hands off the filthy lucre.
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