CNA: How Shagari Prevented Second Republic Lawmakers from Hijacking N’Assembly Bureaucracy

By Deji Elumoye and Udora Orizu

Clerk to the National Assembly, Ojo Olatunde Amos, Thursday disclosed that late former President Shehu Shagari prevented members of the Second Republic National Assembly from making themselves members of the National Assembly Service Commission (NASC).
Amos made this known while playing host to a delegation of the Committee on Administration and Human Resources of Ghana Parliamentary Service Board at the National Assembly.
He said when the idea was mooted by then Senate Leader, late Senator Olusola Saraki, Shagari turned it down by asking the then serving Senators and members of the House of Representatives to choose whether to be members of the commission and forfeit their legislative seats or remain as serving lawmakers.
The Clerk explained how parliamentary bureaucracy was treated like an appendage of the Executive arm of government until year 2000 when the National Assembly Service Commission was created.
He said: “Between 1979 and 1985, politicians tended to act in the military fashion rather than exhibiting democratic traits. For instance, in 1981 when the Senate of the Federal Republic of Nigeria initiated a bill for an Act to establish the National Assembly Service Commission, the then Senate leader, Sen. Olusola Saraki, was said to have proposed that membership of the Commission be composed of Senators and members of the House of Representatives serving at the time.
“When the proposal got to President Shehu Shagari, he asked the Members of the National Assembly to choose between being members of the National Assembly and members of the National Assembly Service Commission. However the Legislative proposal for the commission’s establishment did not see the light of the day during the Shagari administration, perhaps due to the sudden military takeover of power in December 1983.
“1983 the National Assembly was again suspended until 1993 when General Ibrahim Babangida ousted Buhari. Before then, General Ibrahim Babangida had in 1988 through decree 48 of 1988 directed the creation of departments in various ministries of government and National Assembly was created as a department in the presidency. What this implies is that until the return of democracy in 1999 and the creation of the National Assembly Service Commission (NASC) in 2000, National Assembly bureaucracy was not totally independent of the Executive arm.”
He assured the Ghanaian delegation led by Hon Johnson Asiedu Nketiah that processes and procedures guiding the Nigerian model of independent Parliament and its bureaucracy, will be available to them.