…On a steady decline 21 years after
By Torkwase Atime
Twenty-one years after Nigeria’s 4th Republic began, the country’s National Assembly does not have a database where it stores its proceedings, 365Daily has gathered.
This comes as the legislature has over the last three years, received a budget slightly below N400 billion.
As a result, committees and other departments of the Senate and House of Representatives do not have a source from which to retrieve data, especially concerning work previously done by other assemblies – which, perhaps, explains why many motions and bills raised on the floor of the two chambers are often repeated.
As a matter of grave concern, the inability of the parliament to establish a standard data bank remains puzzling, as huge sums of money continue to be allocated to the legislature in annual budgets, without anyone bothering about the lack of a functional critical resource such as a library. Yet, the legislature continues to spend billions of naira annually on renovation and welfare of lawmakers.
Misplaced priorities
Only last year, there was widespread outrage over the allocation of a proposed sum of N37 billion naira for the renovation of the National Assembly under the Federal Capital Territory Administration budget, alongside its N128 billion annual allocation in the 2020 budget.
Findings by 365Daily indicate that due to the impact of the Coronavirus pandemic on the economy, the amount envisaged for the renovation was later reduced to N27.7 billion in a revised budget presented to the National Assembly by the Executive.
In 2019, the National Assembly got an appropriation of N128 billion, while in 2018, it was N139.5 billion.
In March this year, the House of Representatives had come under fire over the acquisition of Toyota Camry, 2020 model, for members as “utility vehicles.” The cars were estimated to cost between US$25,000 to US $35,000 each, depending on the specifications, minus other charges.
This is in addition to about 14 Toyota Land Cruiser Prado sports utility vehicles purchased for presiding officers and other principal officers of the House.
But while funds for welfare of lawmakers are readily available and as at when due, critical infrastructure and facilities such as a standard library remain in limbo for years unending.
Dysfunctional library
Archiving of materials is one of the most important tools employed by parliaments around the world for ease of reference, research and other productive purposes. And with the advent of technology and readily available tools for storing data in concise and easily retrievable forms, interested persons do not need to have a physical presence at a location to get any information they require about an organisation’s activities.
But unlike other parliaments such as the prestigious United States of America (USA)’s Library of Congress, the library of the National Assembly of Nigeria is, besides being analogue, poorly staffed and lacks basic tools for its operations.
365Daily’s investigations revealed that the library, which is located at the back of the Senate White House building, does not enjoy the harvest of funds that goes to the National Assembly annually. It was, in fact, gathered that the paltry allocation for maintenance of the National Assembly library is barely enough to make the place functional.
A journalist who has covered the House of Representatives for The Nation Newspapers for over a decade, Mr. Victor Oluwasegun, speaking on the state of the facility, expressed disappointment with the lack of resources available for visitors to use.
He said: “I usually visit the National Assembly library, but for a while now I have not been there. But I went there today with the intention to read newspapers and other books based on the research I’m doing as regards the #EndSARS police brutality, but to my greatest shock, I was told by the library attendant that they have not gotten newspapers since March when the Covid-19 lockdown started.
“Again, before now, I had been visiting the National Assembly to gather information on some of my research, so I went with the mindset of a broadened library but I was disappointed.
“Another thing is a lot of people don’t know that a library exists in the National Assembly because there’s no awareness to that effect and you know that the reading culture in Nigeria is very poor. The materials are so limited and the library needs to be expanded because even documents concerning the parliament are hardly found there.
“The update culture is very poor, so people who want to do anything serious as regards the parliament prefer to source for information elsewhere. The truth is that the library ought to be the engine room where people can get materials on legislative activities, but unfortunately that is not so,” Oluwasegun said.
Philip Nyam, a member of the House of Representatives Press Corps who reports for Telegraph newspapers, while commenting on the same subject in a chat with 365Daily, said it has been awhile since he visited the National Assembly library because according to him, “it is not convenient.”
Nyam added, “It has been two years since I last visited the National Assembly library because the place is small and can not harbour a lot of people at a time. It is usually very hot and is not convenient for some of us, so I simply stopped going there.
“The arrangement of the few available books also remains an issue, leaving a visitor to the place to go away with the impression that the staff are either not properly motivated, or are simply disenchanted with their work environment. Not only have they refused to put books on the shelves, they appear unwilling to attend to visitors,” he said.
365Daily’s visit to the library somewhat corroborated the positions stated above. Not only is the library bereft of recent books and other material resource for research purposes, the place appears to have been downgraded to the status of a newspaper stand of sorts. Without any shred of doubt, the library seems to have been left far behind in the e-parliament drive of the current leadership of the National Assembly.
When approached to speak on the issues, the Librarian, who refused to disclose his name, declined to volunteer any information, because according to him he is not authorised to speak to the press.
“It is against Civil Service Rules to speak to the press,” he told our correspondent.
However, an intern who spoke on condition of anonymity, said she had not received or seen any new stock, including newspapers, supplied to the Library since she started work in the place shortly before the lockdown in March.
An attempt to get Votes and Proceedings of the immediate past assembly was unsuccessful because they had not been documented in the library.
N2 billion Library Renovation
Anonymous sources, however, told 365Daily that Julius Berger, the giant construction firm, was awarded the contract to build a befitting library for the National Assembly but the project failed when mobilisation was not forthcoming. The total contract sum is said to be in the region of two billion naira.
An attempt to reach the chairman of the House Committee on Legislative Library, Research and Documentation, Hon. Gaza Gbefwi, for comments were unsuccessful as he was said to be away on oversight duties.
365Daily gathered that the present Speaker of the House of Representatives, Femi Gbajabiamila, has shown notable interest in building a world class library that will also serve as a research institute.
But whether this will see the light of day, courtesy requisite appropriation of funds is left to be seen.