"Katsina State of House of Assembly and the Burden of Truth" - Auwal S. Anwar via Blueprint Newspaper We live in a funny world. I think that is the best way to summarize what is happening in Katsina State House of Assembly. But as the saying goes, ‘all days are for the thief, but only one day is for the owner.’ Please let me give you the details as they came to me through the pages of Leadership newspaper, and through other sources. It is for you to appreciate the issues and come to your own conclusions. But if you have anything you can do about it to make this House respect itself, then I think the time is now. On Monday, May 27, 2013, I came across a news item titled ‘Katsina Assembly Not Performing Its Functions,’ on page 41 of the above-named newspaper. Honourable Abdullahi I. Mahuta, the House Minority Leader, was reported to have said that, ‘In 2012, [Katsina] government did not release anything to Isa Kaita College of Education out of the N100 million [that was budgeted]. It released only N800 million out of the N5.2 billion budgeted to Umaru Musa Yaradua University. Not a single kobo to Science and Technical Education Board out of N400 million budget. Hassan Usman Katsina had a budgetary allocation of N399 million but they received only about N43 million.’ This is an incredible revelation coming directly from someone who should know; after all, as a principal officer of the House, he was involved in the budget approval and has oversight functions. Mahuta was disappointed that in spite of these gross infractions and underachievement, ‘the House Committee on Appropriation called for commendation. The Committee commended the Governor for budget performance.’ Given this, Mahuta said that ‘... the essence of democracy is defeated because the House of Assembly is supposed to checkmate the excesses of the governor but we are not doing that.’ I cannot agree more with him. What is the point of democracy if the legislative arm will turn a blind eye to this kind of mutilation of budgetary provisions? And to add insult upon injury, the House was rather recommending commendation – thanking the governor for doing so poorly! Now what would you expect the House to do given that the Minority Leader (the Opposition Leader) has done his job by bringing to the public this unfortunate action in which he was not afraid to indict even himself? Three days later, on page 30 of the same paper, I read a story by the same reporter titled, ‘We Are Performing Our Duties, Katsina Lawmaker Tell CPC’. I therefore rushed to read the story because I was very disturbed by Mahuta’s revelations. I was expecting to see the House Majority (PDP) leadership counter those revelations by given us a better, or at least different, budget performance statistics. I was expecting to see the leadership of those organisations like the University, the Polytechnic and the S&TSB come out publicly to deny Mahuta’s figures about what they actually received; I did not see that. I then lowered my expectation to at least hear the Majority Leader mention what they did to sanction the erring governor for poor performance that was different from the ‘commendation’ that Mahuta claimed. At least, they should have one memo, resolution or something to show where they told the governor to sit up. None. Rather, the Majority Leader, Dr. Lawal Aliyu Musawa, responded that, ‘It is a blatant lie to say that the Assembly is not performing its functions because the House has been able to change the way things are going.’ The question is how? He did not say. He only added that, ‘the Assembly has not shirked from its responsibilities.’ The question Dr. Musawa is, what did you do about the reported poor budget performance? As God will have it, I found myself in Katsina as a result of the passing away of my dear father in-law, may his soul rest in peace, only to hear that Honourable Mahuta has been suspended by the House for saying that ‘the State Assembly is not performing its functions’ and saying that the ‘capacity of the law makers needed to be raised.’ I found this event unbelievable in a democracy. How can Mahuta be punished for doing his job as a Minority Leader? Is he supposed to keep quiet when things are not going right? Is he also supposed to praise the governor for his poor performance, appreciate the House leadership for commending poorly done job, and then keep quiet so that he can maintain his seat? I had to go back to his interview to see if had really said that they were not doing anything at all. No, he did not. He was only referring to the budget for the education sector and inferring from there that the behaviour of the House, in that respect, was derailing democracy. Yes, he has also said that the House members needed capacity building. I wonder what is wrong with that. Even those that we borrowed democracy from are continuously building the capacities of their lawmakers. I even read him somewhere online saying that the House was organising such kinds of programmes for them. So what is wrong with that? This is why I think the House is shooting itself in the feet and must therefore be saved from itself. Mahuta has already denied ‘attacking’ the House through the same paper on June 2, page 30. The poor fellow even went ahead to apologize for being misunderstood but stood firmly with his figures. Yet, they suspended him. Now if the House wants to investigate Mahuta, it can. But there is no need to suspend him for this noble and courageous act. If it cannot ‘commend’ him for doing his duty as a leader of the Opposition, it should at least reinstate him pending the result of the investigations. This will underscore the ‘Honour’ in their names.
Posted on: Fri, 07 Jun 2013 09:29:56 +0000
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