The legislative chamber late last week ate the humble pie and reversed itself on some of the giddy measures it had set onto, which reeked of legislative brigandage. The coming days will show whether the chamber’s back-pedalling was sincere enough, and not too little too late in the day. The Senate had carried on, to the consternation of many Nigerians, as if the weighty task of lawmaking was a gutter fight motivated by the ongoing trial of Senate President Bukola Saraki before the Code of Conduct Tribunal (CCT). On the heels of a ruling early last week by the chairman of the tribunal, Justice Danladi Umar, that he would henceforth hold day-long sittings everyday to try the Saraki case that had dragged forever since last year, the Ethics, Privileges and Public Petitions Committee of the Senate issued a summons on the same judge to appear before it “unfailingly” by 2p.m. on Thursday. Well, seriously?! The time scheduled for Umar’s appearance before the Senate committee conflicted flagrantly with the trial routine he had already made public. And so, the timing and coincidence of that summons were obvious even to a nincompoop as retaliatory against the tribunal judge and targeted at frustrating the Senate President’s trial. Discerning citizens and interest groups, of course, tackled the Senate over the summons and counselled that the tribunal judge should ignore it. Not that anyone thought it was it was helpful for our emerging democracy that legislative authority should be defied. But the legislative chamber, by the summons, undermined its own legislative dignity. It was thus in enlightened self-interest that the Senators, two days later, stepped down the invitation to Umar. The chairman of the summoning Senate committee, Senator Samuel Anyanwu, was reported as saying the legislative chamber reconsidered because the tribunal judge wrote in to officially ask for an extension of time. But, trust me, the legislative chamber is better off letting the matter lie, because it cannot at this time conduct any probe the tribunal judge that would have any shred of credibility. Isn’t there something generally known as ‘conflict of interest’? In any event, the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) was in the news late last week as having cleared the judge of the N10million bribery allegation pending against him. That clearance, from all indications, has made nugatory any plan by the Senate to proceed with its investigation of Justice Umar. A caveat though: EFCC is an interested party in the trial of the Senate President before Justice Umar, and I would personally have nursed serious reservations against the timing of its clearance of the tribunal judge, just like one did against the Senate summons on him. But the latest clearance was said to be reinforcing an earlier one issued under the administration of former President Goodluck Jonathan by the former leadership of the EFCC under Ibrahim Lamorde, and that minimizes the chances of sinister motivation regarding the Saraki case. Besides the sudden summoning of the tribunal judge, the Senate had earlier on set onto a fast track legislative process to amend the Code of Conduct Bureau and Code of Conduct Tribunal Acts, as well as the Administration of Criminal Justice (ACJ) Act. Notice that the Conduct Bureau is the Senate President’s accuser even though he is being prosecuted by the EFCC, while the Tribunal is the trial court; and a major plank of the proposed ACJ Act amendment was to exclude the Conduct Tribunal from the application of that Act, such that the tribunal would no longer have jurisdiction to try criminal matters as it is doing now in the case of the Senate President. The legislative chamber, of course, justified the proposed amendments and argued that persons accusing it of aiming to benefit the Senate President thereby were just ill-informed. The chairman of the Senate Committee on Media and Public Affairs, Aliyu Abdullahi, was reported as saying since the Saraki case commenced in 2015, any amendment of the law in 2016 could not retroactively affect an ongoing case.”The proposed amendment would still take a minimum of six months, given the long process that law-making requires. This process includes committee hearing, public hearing, reporting back to Senate Committee of the Whole, the concurrence in the House of Representatives, and assent by the President as the final stage. There is no way we will even complete the process of finally effecting the amendments before the completion of the Saraki case. So, those who read selfish or ulterior motives to this ordinary legislative activity are either mischievous or ignorant of legislative procedures,” he told journalists last week. All that may well be true. But again, the timing of the amendments was indiscretionary in the extreme, as some members of that legislative chamber had cared to counsel; and the haste that attended the first two readings of the amendment bills was spurious and uncharacteristic of the notoriously sticky legislative process. Really, what was the rush for? Even if the Senate truly had noble intentions with the proposed amendments, its timing and haste were irremediably suspect; and it was redeeming for the chamber to have decided last week to suspend further legislative action on the bills. The proposed amendments had looked like a legislative foundry to fashion spanners that could be thrown at the ongoing tribunal trial of the Senate president, and no alchemy of whitewash by the legislative chamber could have altered that perception. I am a firm believer in the presumed innocence of an accused person until proven guilty by a court of competent jurisdiction. But the Senate President must submit himself to trial and prove his innocence, if he is indeed innocent of the charges against him. So far, he has exerted judicial energy more on stalling the trial than in putting up a robust defence against the charges, and that does not add up to the profile of someone who really has a defence. Still, it is good that the 8th Senate is in search of redemption. While at it, the legislative chamber would need to get Nigerians to terms with its decision to procure a fleet of foreign-made exotic vehicles amidst severe drought of foreign exchange and dire economic difficulties facing this country. It had last week confirmed taking delivery of 36 units of Land Cruiser VXR V8 model, at N36.5million unit price, and not a few consider the procurement as insensitive and affronting to public sensibility. The chairman of the Committee on Senate Services, Senator Abdullahi Gobir, told journalists last week that the 36 units were all that would be acquired in view of the harsh economic conditions. “We bought 36 cars because each senator in each state is either a chairman or a vice-chairman and we gave one car to each state. We don’t have money to buy 108 cars, “he said. Well, the question arises as to how the number of states became a determinant factor for the Senate in acquiring those vehicles. If they were operational vehicles and not mere patronage items, how come the vehicles were not assigned on the basis of Senate committees or committee clusters, but rather on the basis of states? And if they were given in patronage, then the procurement of even one unit of the vehicle was a mindless rape on the national treasury. There is need for more explanation.]]>