National Assembly: A Fitting Playing Field? By Andrew A. Erakhrumen

Posted by African Examiner Articles/Opinion, Latest Headlines Tuesday, April 1st, 2025

(AFRICAN EXAMINER) – We will not flog a dead horse in this article. However, as always, we will contribute to the efforts at documenting perspectives on some past and ongoing events hoping that the future will finally need them as archival materials. This means that all the acts by a person or group (past and present) – knowingly and unknowingly – constitute what becomes history after now. Thus, we are all creating history! Let us start this way: according to a report on Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI) by Nigeria’s National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), “….. 63% of persons living within Nigeria are multidimensionally poor.

The National MPI is 0.257 indicating that poor people in Nigeria experience just over one-quarter of all possibilities deprivations…..cook with dung, wood or charcoal…..[have poor] sanitation, time to healthcare, food security and housing….. 2.1% of the population live with a child aged 15-17 [years old] who is the first generation in that household to have completed primary school…..” This depressing report was published by NBS (a federal government agency) in November, 2022! Was/is it really gloomy to Nigeria’s political office holders? According to NBS, the survey was conducted from November, 2021 to February, 2022.

We will deliberately limit our assessment of Nigeria’s MPI to this 2022 value obtained by NBS before the advent of the 2023 general elections that brought in new governments. We will be stating the obvious –even without making reference to other recently published survey reports on MPI – that the situation is worse today. We have seen and felt real poverty on the street! People are hungry, angry and lamenting daily! It is awfully real but we will leave further assessment of this reality to the reader! Sadly, it still appears that the poor folks in Nigeria have accepted their fate since poverty has been normalised by their political leaders. Of course, they have completely handed their political power over to these mediocrities.

We have been wondering how and why they have been able to tolerate this type of “leaders” for this long.

Maybe, they are patiently waiting for their time to become beneficiaries of the rot since Nigeria is “Turn-by-Turn” (Anyhow) Limited! You need not listen to those mediocrities to know that Nigeria and common Nigerians have been in serious trouble at the hands of these swindlers! You also need not wait for long to see those quacks throw decorum to the dogs when speaking and behaving in ways that reveal deep-seated insecurities rooted in intellectual and ideological hollowness! In this instance, street urchins or touts at motor parks – derogatively referred to as “agbero” – are better than these twopenny-halfpenny characters!

Unfortunately, many of the poor people sampled by NBS for the reported MPI are very much likely to be unemployed or underemployed while others are working under “slave conditions”. With the prevailing Nigeria’s socio-politico-economics, things are not looking up for this category of voiceless and powerless people; except those that are able to conjure up ingenuities. Surely, this predatory milieu requires positive inventiveness. Those holding political power do not care as long as there are still petro-dollars to share among them; every other person can go to hell! In fact, there is nothing exemplifying the saying, “Nero fiddled while Rome burned”, than Nigeria’s current condition in the hands of its public office holders.

To sanity, these nauseating irresponsibility, misbehaviour, unseriousness and playfulness by these overindulged politicians on Nigeria’s political scene are annoying. If their case is comparatively analysed, today, perhaps, Nero Claudius Caesar Augustus Germanicus born Lucius Domitius Ahenobarbus (37–68CE) “did not” actually “fiddle” much in Rome of antiquity! Holding political power in Nigeria has been clearly synonymous with engaging in vile pleasures and indulgences escorted by sheer indolence!

Nonsense! How will Nigeria move forward with these “leaders”? You see/hear things that look/sound like scripted comedy performances! Wow! Indeed, these guys are good humorists only having fun-filled time!

Preposterously, many of the same oppressed people being fought for are always fighting themselves dirty, online and offline, to declare support for these counterfeits. Some people really need their head examined!

Nigeria has been having a National Assembly of a bi-cameral legislature for some time now. The first experience was during the aborted Second Republic (1979–1983). The current one (comprising of House of Representatives and Senate) was inaugurated on the 13 th of June, 2023. Although, insinuations are rife that both “hallowed” chambers are “rubber stamp” to the executive arm of federal government but this is not the focus of this article. Nonetheless, mention will be made of an allegation against the current senate president made by one of the only four female senators in this 10 th National Assembly. We will not take side as we are not able to confirm the veracity, or otherwise, of the accusation. We will also not talk about the negative publicity generated by the associated awkward visuals, from the senate, that have gone viral.

Nigeria, indeed, has a senate! Nigeria’s politics and politicians have regressed and are still regressing!

The allegation, you ask? It is that Natasha Akpoti-Uduaghan accused Godswill Akpabio of sexually harassing her! She even submitted a petition, in that regard, on the floor of senate on the 5 th of March,2025! Currently, this “accuser” is on a six-month suspension from the senate and its activities, since on the 6 th of March, 2025, for gross misconduct and unruly behaviour while the “accused” is still presiding over the senate’s proceedings, sending “prayers” to his colleagues’ mailboxes to “spiritually” assist them!

The “good works” by this senate and its president must continue! Is that not so? As aforementioned, we will not take side but will denounce the worthless self-indulgence that these politicians highly prioritise.

We will be using those legislators as a case study in this and other inglorious instances. Definitely, this allegation of sexual harassment is a serious matter that should require that the senate president step down for proper investigation but not in Nigeria! He has been a judge in his own case! This particular senate is wonderful; Akpabio is fortunate to be its president! We are not saying that the accusation is right or wrong as some have claimed that people do resort to such an accusation when relationships go sour! Yes, politicians are very complex and slippery specimens that must be carefully handled as they defy linear analysis! Please, do not quote us out of context concerning the foregoing; we are just being objective by trying to state both sides of the argument. Yet, we strongly stand against any form of sexual harassment!

Compulsorily, the Nigerian society has to listen to, and address, issues of gender-based violence, noting that gender issues should not be limited to any of the sexes. The females might have been vociferous, and rightly so, in this campaign because of a society that they have significantly contributed their quota to in making patriarchal. Since the supposed private matter has been made public, there is no need to sweep it under the carpet; proper investigation should be carried out while the claim should be substantiated by the accuser. Irrespective of the merits and demerits of the above-mentioned matter in the senate, it is clear – considering the vigorousness with which it has been pursued so far – that many of those “representing” Nigerians in the National Assembly are only representing themselves and theirs! Sadly, this is not news!

Some private matters are gladly made “national” in the National Assembly! Unbelievably but hilariously, the place has been turned into a playground for nonsensical distractions! Or, how else do we explain the inanities regularly engaged in by legislators in those “hallowed” chambers? They have always majored in the minor there! How has the nonsense helped in providing enabling environment for productive ventures in the country? How has it helped in reducing the excruciating poverty currently pressing the necks of a large number of Nigerians? Here, we are referring to the hardworking ones constrained towards tokenism!

Enactments, from these chambers, that pauperise are wicked and evil! Are these politicians aware of, and/or care about, the existence of the above-quoted NBS report? We cannot find any news report where any legislator spoke about this reported MPI during any legislative sitting! For us, this current House of Representatives and Senate have not demonstrated that they have the welfare of the less privileged in mind. Those of them representing Nigeria’s ugly side are neither honourable nor distinguished! These are nitwits produced by a superstructure supporting unintelligence and brigandage to subdue intelligence and civility! Hence, it is not surprising that they unashamedly dwell more on ridiculousness and vacuity in the full glare of cameras’ lights for the world to see! Rubbish! Certainly, shamelessness has other definitions among these politicians! We are ashamed for the shameless ones among those guys! It is saddening! Dead horse! We insist that we will not flog a dead horse, believing that the reader understands what we mean.

*Prof. Erakhrumen currently teaches at the Department of Forest Resources and Wildlife Management, University of Benin, Benin City, Nigeria.