To Speaker Femi Gbajabimila, the executive arm of government can never do anything wrong, and Gbaja will always be quick to throw his weight behind any position that tilts towards the decision of the executive, however unjustifiable or even unreasonable it is.
This has been observed many times over and it played out again twice during the plenary last week. The first was on Wednesday during the debate on a bill seeking the reopening of the Idi-Iroko land border and other land borders that are still closed. The situation was repeated on Thursday during the consideration of the report on the suspension of Twitter by the government.
Although, Gbajabimila ensured that the motion on the reopening of land borders was defeated through a voice vote, however, the message from the majority of the lawmakers who spoke on the motion was clear, the Nigerian economy is being badly affected by the closure and there is the need for the government to reconsider its decision.
Perhaps, out to patriotism, one may innocently be persuaded by Gbajabimila’s arguments that the motion was standing in-between security consideration and economic prosperity, nevertheless, I can predict that as soon as President Buhari changes his mind on the matter, Gbajabimila will also sing a different song to suit the president’s melody.
Similarly, during debate on the report submitted by the joint committees of the House that investigated the suspension of Twitter’s operations in Nigeria, the speaker as, expected played the good boy. I can imagine how embarrassed his deputy, Idris Wase felt when Gbaja spoke in support of the report.
Wase was so disappointed that he told the speaker that the House needed to be conscious of not setting a bad precedent.
“On the matter that was raised sir, I was the first to raise the matter. And I am convinced beyond reasonable doubt that truly they need to have exhausted more avenues. I noted one point. It bothers security. And for the fact that it bothers on security, that the content said to invite the Minister, it does not preclude them from inviting the National Security Adviser. Hearing from the minister who may just have a tip of information cannot be the basis of writing a recommendation that the Nigerian government has taken based on security.
“I still want to say that they needed to have gone further. It has shown even from the report that the chairman of National Security was not even an active participant in it. It has rendered the work, as far as I am concerned to some extent, not thoroughly done,” Wase insisted.
Deputy minority leader of the House, Toby Okechukwu also toed the same line of argument with Wase.
“The motion regarding Twitter, they have very clear instructions on what to do. None of the five recommendations have answered any of the questions.
We should be responding to what the parliament has asked you to do. There should be a ban or no ban. And there should be a basis for it. So, the committee had not done prudent work, because they have not asked parliament to take a resolution on this matter. So it speaks to no issue. I will say that this report should not be considered.”
However, despite having established that the committee did not adequately address its terms of reference, Gbajabimila insisted on the report and as usual set the tone for its adoption.
“I think it is uncharitable. Almost disingenuous to come and try and lampoon the work done by the Committee. Whatever side of the divide we are on, the committee has discharged its responsibility objectively. Now the recommendation may not be as straight to the point as we want, that is the whole idea of consideration of the report. You can interject. You can amend. You can put in your recommendation based on the finding.”
With this development, the 9th House of Representatives has successfully set another bad precedent. Should Nigerians expect another one soon?
