National Assembly records show that from 1999 to the 8th National Assembly (2015-2019), the 469 seats at both the Senate and House of Reps have been occupied by 2,345 persons. This includes those who weren’t re-elected and the freshers who displaced them.
In the 9th National Assembly, 64 Senators and 151 Reps, were not re-elected. Adding 215 freshers to the 2,345 and making a total of 2,560 persons. In the ongoing 10th Assembly, after the 2023 elections, over 310 persons in both chambers are new lawmakers, upping the total to over 2,870.
A vast majority of all these National Assembly members, including those who are dead, own at least one house in the Abuja metropolis. Houses inherited by virtue of their tenures in the NASS. Some own up to ten. It is the same case with the 36 former and current governors and even ministers and DGs of MDAs, since 1999. Not many of them are exceptions. Check your neighborhoods, very very few of those who you “voted for”, ever return home at the expiration of their assignments in Abuja.
They remain in Abuja. Ask yourself what exactly they are staying behind to do. It’s either they are angry with their constituency for relieving them of their jobs or they know they didn’t help to develop their constituency to a level they can return to, or both. So they stay back to pull the strings and hussle contracts.
I am not reminding you of this open-sourced information in the hope that it will be used for anything impactful. That will be a huge surprise because we don’t have that craft. I am only trying to make you realize that, YES! There are a small number of political power seekers who genuinely desire power in order to change our communities. Then they are promptly consumed by the systemic sleaze. But the majority of those who stumble into these revered positions only seek those offices for ornament and escape from uncertainty into the privileged ruling class.
I am drawing this conclusion simply from the obvious fact that, since 1999, if about 3000 federal lawmakers, tens of thousands of state lawmakers, hundreds of state governors, hundreds of ministers, thousands of DGs, and all those who have occupied high offices of service in this country, and have personally benefited the most from a sleaze laden nation, had done their work as was expected, life in Nigeria will not be this excruciating. But this couldn’t have been possible without the herd cooperation of a docile followership deficient in the knowledge of what they want.
But those who hold the reins of power must make haste to ameliorate the pangs of poverty ravaging the population. It is horrible and dangling. It appears we are yet to fully grasp the desperate level of “begging” ongoing and the impending consequences. But who will bell the cat?
Citizen Agba Jalingo is the Publisher of CrossRiverWatch and a rights activist, a Cross Riverian, and writes from Lagos.
NB: Opinions expressed in this article are strictly attributable to the author, Agba Jalingo, and do not represent the opinion of CrossRiverWatch or any other organization the author works for/with.