When Rep. Fem Gbajabiamila emerged the Speaker of the 9th House of Representatives on June 11, 2019, he did so in a grand style, giving his co-contender for the Number 4 Citizen’s seat a margin never seen before in the history of the Speakership contest in the Green Chamber.
On that day, all eyes were on the fifth term Representative of Surulere 1 Federal Constituency of Lagos State, who had hitherto carved a nice legislative niche for himself and become the darling of everyone that followed the activities of the House of Representatives in more than a decade.
Gbajabiamila easily won the contest, in what could be described as a walkover, a seat he lost by just eight votes four years earlier. He had put the events of June 2015 behind him, accepted his fate and continued to work assiduously.
His legislative acumen, sagacity and finesse as well as maintaining a good relationship with his colleagues made him win the seat by an unprecedented margin of 281 votes to his opponent’s 76 votes in June, 2019.
Immediately after he was declared winner, sworn in and assumed the Chair, Gbajabiamila made it clear in his inaugural speech that there was no victor and no vanquished, and that the House under him would be a House of reforms for the Nigerian people.
Conscious of the fact that he holds the position of Speaker in trust for his colleagues and Nigerians, Gbajabiamila said: “I hereby dedicate myself to the service of this Honourable House and of the good citizens of this great country with the commitment that I shall at all times strive to defend the Constitution of our Republic.”
In carrying everybody along, Gbajabiamila, whose campaign theme is, ‘Nation Building: A Joint Task,’ ensured that his campaign logo, which represents all the political parties in the House, is displayed permanently behind the Speaker’s Chair inside the chamber. This, the Speaker said, would be “a constant reminder of what this Assembly is all about.”
Gbajabiamila minced no words when he said: “The 9th Assembly under my leadership is going to be a House of reforms or if you like a reform Assembly. The reforms will be dished out piecemeal and at intervals so as not to shock the system. Moving forward, therefore, my dear colleagues, it will not be business as usual, and we will be shaking the table just a little. We will be introducing various reforms that will reposition this institution, but please rest assured that they will be for the greater good.”
In hitting the ground running, the Speaker, working in sync with other members of the House leadership, constituted the Standing Committees of the House on July 25, 2019, exactly 44 days after his election to the office. This was done to enable the activities of the House to take off in earnest. Owing to his open-mindedness, the Speaker accommodated members of the opposition parties, including those that did not support his emergence, as either chairmen or deputy chairmen of some committees. Similarly, all those that contended for the Speaker’s seat were made committees’ chairmen. There can’t be a better way to provide purposeful leadership than this!
Speaker Gbajabiamila made it a cardinal point that the members of the House would recite the National Pledge as part of their prayers at the commencement of plenary and other businesses of the House. He said that would help inculcate the spirit of nation-building “even in our subconscious.” Today, the National Pledge is part and parcel of the House Standing Orders.
The Speaker immediately constituted an ad-hoc committee to draft the Legislative Agenda for the 9th House under the chairmanship of Prof. Julius Ihonvbere, a member of the House. The committee concluded its work, and the Legislative Agenda was launched on October 11 last year.
Some major components of the Legislative Agenda are ensuring e-parliament; ensuring early budget presentation and passage; deployment of ICT in legislative activities at the plenary and committee sittings; recognizing and honouring patriotic Nigerians; creation of community police, opening up of the finances of the House to the public, among many others.
Without mincing words, some items on the Legislative Agenda have manifestly been implemented and achieved in just less than 12 months. For example, the Speaker played a critical role in the early presentation of the 2020 Appropriation Bill and its unprecedented early passage by the House. Apart from organising a budget roundtable before its presentation, Gbajabiamila personally attended one of the budget defence sessions, the first time by any Speaker. He also attended the budget public hearing, jointly organised by the Senate and House Committees on Appropriation. He spoke eloquently at both events on the need for early budget passage.
Establishing a world-class Legislative Library for the National Assembly is also one area that the Speaker has given much attention to. His efforts yielded some results when the sum of N2 billion was appropriated for the take-off of the Legislative Library.
Concerned by the level of insecurity, such as banditry, kidnapping, insurgency and other forms of criminality that led to thousands of Nigerians becoming internally displaced persons (IDPs), Gbajabiamila, at grave personal risk, visited war theatres in Zamfara, Borno and Katsina States between August and September last year, where he met with affected citizens to assess the situation with a view to taking decisive legislative action. To show compassion, the Speaker donated food times, medical equipment and other essentials to the IDPs. He also sponsored an operation for a child born with a cleft, to a female IDP from Batsari Local Government of Katsina State.
Soon after the visits and coupled with various motions and reports he received from members on the insecurity situations in their constituencies, the Speaker engaged the service chiefs, the Inspector General of Police and the heads of other security agencies to arrest the situation.
In the last 12 months, the House under Gbajabiamila has ensured an appreciable level of the independence of the Legislature. Against the notion that the House would be a sort of rubber stamp of the Executive, it has so far proven whoever held that belief, hitherto, wrong. It was to assert the independence of the Legislature that the House insisted and ensured that all heads of MDAs appeared for budget defence in person within a stipulated time. Gbajabiamila himself turned down the representatives of some service chiefs at a security meeting with the House leadership and insisted on the appearance of holders of the offices in person, which they did.
The House has also not been shy to take any member of the Executive to task over their responsibilities as the Speaker did over the issue of hazard allowances for frontline workers in the fight against the Covid-19 pandemic.
It was also to assert its independence that the House stepped down the consideration and passage of the 22.7 billion dollar loan request by the President for months to ensure the inclusion of South East as a beneficiary and eventually forced the insertion of a clause guaranteeing participation of the South East and North East and the inclusion of the Port Harcout to Maiduguri rail in any future borrowing. If not for the independence of the Legislature, all of this could not be attempted.
But let it be known that the House has also ensured good synergy with the Executive arm in the past one year. It was the synergy between the two arms that ensured the early passage of the 2020 Budget. Also, the House passed the Executive’s Finance Bill and the Deep Offshore Sharing Formula Bill in record time. They were passed because of the good understanding between the House and the Executive.
After spending just one year in the saddle, Gbajabiamila has made indelible marks in the annals of history as the Speaker of the House, who introduced several reforms. It is safe to say that in the next three years, Nigerians will witness more of this purposeful, reasonable, responsible and responsive leadership in the Green Chamber.
Krishi is the Chief Press Secretary to the Speaker, House of Representatives.
