The Constitution of Nigeria , the written sovereign law of the Federal Republic of Nigeria in its current form was enacted on 29 May 1999.
The Senate, referred to as the Red Chamber, has 109 Senators representing three Senatorial Districts of each of the 36 States of the Federation and Abuja the federal capital.
The formation of the Chamber is based on three Senatorial Districts per State and one for the Federal Capital Territory.
The House of Representatives also known as the Green Chamber is made up of 360 Federal Representatives. Each Member represents one Federal Constituency of Nigeria. The number of Constituencies per State vary since population strength is the measure used to determine the number of each State’s Federal Constituencies.
The National Assembly is constitutionally vested with several functions. Prominent among them are lawmaking, representation, oversight, and a host of others. A host of others is not definitive however, oversight functions of accountability, compliance, and effective governance are very important as they act as checks and balances of the executive, the ministries, MDAs and the parastatals.
This function is critical in establishing checks and balances, providing guidance, and ensuring that organisations operate in alignment with the mission and ethical standards.
The Greek philosopher Aristotle averred that state exists for public good and continues to exist for the greater good of humanity. Democracy gives people opportunity to determine how they are governed. This is our albatross today as we the people have no say on how we are to be governed as applied to Constituency Projects.
As Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum , the ruler of Dubai said in his book “Flashes of Thought” “Government should work towards the happiness of the people. It is an authority at the service of the people and not an authority over the people” Can our people boldly say this of our government or those in government?
The electorate or body of Nigerian masses look up to government for democracy dividends. The Nigerian National Assembly in response to the yearnings of their constituents for development/ federal presence demanded and got “Constituency Project” fund introduced into the yearly appropriation (budget). Since the inception of constituency project in Nigeria there have been misconceptions, misinterpretations, and judgement of the constituency project administration because there is almost no project to point out to in over 90% of the constituencies except those of some principal officers of the National Assembly.
This and indeed many other factors have rendered the chambers of the National Assembly an ATM without any form of accountability, compliance and value for money for constituency projects.
This write up is to bring about the short comings of the National assembly knowingly or unknowingly the dastardly role it had played over the years in short-changing the citizens and the nation in infrastructural development and job creation that should have arisen from constituency projects since 2013 because of the missing link.
What are Constituency Projects?
Constituency projects were created to ensure a minimum presence of government in every constituency by having some grass-roots projects sited in each, during the budgeting process.
Legislators are only required to identify projects which they wished to be sited in their constituencies for inclusion in the budget, with a financial ceiling for the budgetary provisions for such projects in each constituency. The 1999 Constitution gives power to the National Assembly to appropriate funds for government spending as highlighted in section 80 (2, 3 and 4). Senator Femi Okuronmu reasoned that the rationale behind the introduction of constituency project is:
“To ensure a minimum presence of government in every constituency by having some grass-roots projects sited in each one, during the budgeting process… Legislators were merely required to identify projects which they wished to be sited in their constituencies for inclusion in the budget, with a financial ceiling for the budgetary provisions for such projects in each constituency. The award of contracts for, and the supervision and payments for such contracts were left completely in the hands of the appropriate executive agencies of government”.
Senator Ayogu Eze agreed with the position above, as he established that , “Our role is simply to identify the projects for our constituency while the Executive arm of government will identify the contractor to execute the project”
Deputy Senate President 2009, Ike Ekweremadu, also opined that of constituency project came up because of the need to ensure equitable distribution of infrastructure since every part of the country has a proper representation, in the House of Representatives and in the Senate. He contended that there could be a lopsided distribution of development in the country if governors and senators are allowed to decide the location of projects. As a result, it now requires all the representatives to produce what their constituents want. Often, this is not the situation.
I have termed this write up as conspiracy, controversy, anomaly, and scam by our elected officials due to the following reasons:
Conspiracy: The Cambridge dictionary defines Conspiracy as “the activity of secretly planning with other people to do something bad or illegal”
Controversy: Same Cambridge dictionary defines Controversy as “a lot of disagreement or argument about something, usually because it affects or is important to many people”
Anomaly: Cambridge dictionary defines Anomaly as “a person or thing that is different from what is usual, or not in agreement with something else and therefore not satisfactory”.
Scam: The Cambridge dictionary defines Scam as “a dishonest plan for making money or getting an advantage, especially one that involves tricking people:”
Constituency projects all fall within the above purview because of :-
- lack of due process, value for money, and public accountability.
- It is almost impossible to identify any constituency project that the award of contracts, the supervision and payments for such contracts are left are in the hands of the appropriate executive agencies of government.
- non-implementation and use of the 2007 Public Procurement Act.
The three items mentioned above render all constituency projects null and void.
Formulation of Constituency projects.
We should move from bringing governments close to the people to bringing people close to government (Igbokwe, 1992). Rather than imposing Constituency projects on the community, its members should be allowed to participate right from selection, planning and execution of projects. Community based development initiatives improve the match between what a community needs and what it obtains from development projects. It is better to mobilize the society rather than leading it, because once the self-confidence in the people germinates, it will not take a long time for the flowers of development to blossom (Chirenje et al., 2013).
It is wrong for the Senators /HOR members to wake out of slumber and decide to provide pepper grounding machines to a handful of women or wheelbarrows to a handful of men without consultation and without the stakeholders knowing the allocation granted to the politicians as constituency project allowance.
Community participation in project selection and implementation is about ordinary citizens assessing needs, participating in project planning, and budgeting, implementation and monitoring. This improves public resource management and reduces corruption. Thus, making political leaders and others involved accountable to the people.
Community must be involved in projects that affect them in the following ways:
1. Involvement: This includes information, education and planning and Budgeting (IEPB) to provide adequate and timely data, educate people about the initiative around the development, and a plan of action and the cost of the proposed project.
2. Control: This involves implementation, co-ordination, and monitoring (ICM). In this stage, it is assumed that once the community is well informed about a particular development initiative, they are in a better position to understand and follow the implementation of the project activities.
3. Ownership: This stage will portray that Community owns the funds allocated for the project. The politician is a servant and a messenger delivering the service for which he was voted for to the community. This engenders a sense of ownership and commitment to the project.
4. Feedback: This stage includes consultation to harness community’s knowledge and experiences reassess their needs and evaluate outcomes of the project. It also holds local people accountable for successes and failures.
The benefits of Community involvement in projects among others according to Arthur and Michelle (2002) of are:
1. It will lead to better designed projects.
2. Better targeted benefits.
3. It is more cost effective.
4. It will lead to more equitable distribution of project benefits
5. It will lead to less corruption.
6. It strengthens the capabilities of the citizenry to undertake self-initiated development activities.
7. It improves the match between what a community needs and what it obtains. This is because the project will be more consistent with the preference of the target group.
People must be allowed to participate in projects that affect them.
Oluwole Jerome Ajakaiye is a Fellow of the Chartered Institution of Chartered Surveyors of the United Kingdom and writes from Bristol in the UK from https://olajaxcostrend.com Info@olajaxcostrend.com
