Senate: Thank you, but…, by Tonnie Iredia

In recent times, new narratives are emerging daily in Nigeria’s fight against insecurity. On a daily basis, we now hear of bandits and kidnappers that are captured by our gallant security forces. New developments, more impetus, greater hopes. Also, recently, the Nigerian senate approved a donation of fifty million naira (N50m) to the families of five individuals who lost their lives during the rescue operation that followed the abduction of pupils and teachers from schools in Oriire local government area of Oyo state. Senate President Godswill Akpabio who announced the donation last Wednesday said the senate took the decision to augment the upkeep of the children left behind by the deceased adding that each of the affected families would get N10million. We cannot but thank the senate for what looks like uncommon compassion especially as it has not been a regular reaction of the senate to the role of security agencies who paid the supreme sacrifice under similar circumstances.

Indeed, one senator hoped that the same posture would be extended to other security officials who have also lost their lives in similar operations in other parts of the country. But our only problem concerning the donation is that there is not enough information on it. How we wish it was contributed by the nation’s wealthy 109 senators. From the way it was announced, it would appear that it was donated by the senate as a body. In other words, the Nigerian senate has a subhead in its budget for donations. In addition, the said subhead is buoyant enough to have as much as N50million that can be taken ‘at a go’ with perhaps a balance for other donations as and when due. If that is so, why will going to the senate not become a matter of life and death for a typical Nigerian politician? Now we can imagine that apart from salaries and allowances that are said to be the highest in the world, our senators have constituency projects and all types of allowances.  The judiciary that everyone else is ‘helping’ is probably the only one lagging behind in budgetary matters.

Another matter of public interest that has left the senate in the middle of the news is its decision to confirm the nomination of Professor Abayomi Sunday Fasina as a non-career ambassador.  Some people had tried to use several petitions to block the confirmation of Fasina who had earlier served as Vice Chancellor of the Federal University Oye-Ekiti (FUOYE). At the point when the senate decided to confirm the nominee last week, there were allegations of sexual harassment, human rights violations and victimisation against Fasina. The allegations were yet to be determined at the National Industrial Court in Lagos and Abuja. The senate justified its stand with the argument that the allegations had been cleared by the Police and the DSS as well as the governing council of the university. However, no one is sure of the veracity of the alleged clearance especially as an earlier report by the Foundation for Investigative Journalism (FIJ)had stated that the university’s Governing Council directed Mr Fasina to apologise to the complainant. Does that amount to innocence?

Although a few senators had urged the senate to exercise some restraint as a confirmation of the nominee would appear insensitive, the senate went ahead to clear Professor Fasina for the position of non-career ambassador. Here, the senate does not appear to have done well because to confirm a nomination calls for more diligence than has been exhibited. In a country of over 200 million citizens, it is not difficult to find hundreds of people with no accusation of any form of misdemeanour. Our senate must thus learn to be circumspect about rushing into the confirmation of nominees that are opposed by certain segments of the society. Clear guilt is not all that can hold or pause the confirmation of a nominee. Certain objections ought to be thoroughly examined and concluded because the holder of the position of an ambassador ought to be clearly above board like Caesar’s wife. It is only that type of confirmed nominee that deserves public respect.

Again, not everyone was surprised to hear of the confirmation. Some weeks ago, one analyst had argued that nothing would stop the confirmation of Fasina because the ruling party cannot disappoint a person who had served as INEC’s Returning Officer at a Governorship Election. Is it true that it was the same Fasina that was the returning officer for a popular governorship election in one of the states of Nigeria held in November 2023? Could that have played a role in the current controversial confirmation of his appointment? Ordinarily, where people work with diligence, the issues being linked here would not have arisen. But it is important for government to begin to reduce the high degree of politicisation in the nation. Those who introduced Vice Chancellors as Returning Officers at elections had imagined that the presence of such intellectuals would add ample value to the credibility of our elections. But is that the case these days?

We are not unaware of the possibility that fake allegations can be concocted by opponents as soon as some persons are nominated for an office but that is not enough to confirm the nomination of anyone only because he had not been declared guilty of any offence. In saner climes, the mere mention of a crime is enough to stop the confirmation of a nominee. Not to confirm a nominee may be inelegant but it is no proof of conviction. There is therefore nothing much to lose if a nominee could not be confirmed. If Nigeria begins to run such a strict system, the massive corruption in our nation would drop and people will begin to recognise what it takes to be accountable. Put differently, people will become more careful about their behaviour because of the type of consequences that could flow each time persons especially those in authority behave irresponsibly. The United Kingdom is perhaps a good example of how people care so much about public opinion

In April 2025, there was a story that the UK British Police in Avon and Somerset arrested a Labour Parliamentarian, by name Dan Norris, on mere suspicion of sexual offences and misconduct in a public office. As a result, the political party which MP Norris belongs immediately placed him on suspension to reflect the party’s zero tolerance for corruption. Aptly put, Norris was still under investigation when a suspension notice was entered against him just as he also lost his position as party whip in the House of Commons. Whereas the reaction would appear hasty, the Labour Party which claims to belong to the masses and the working class explained that it could not afford to have a legislator that can be accused of such criminal offences. In other words, any politician wanting to stand for election under LP’s platform must be conscious of the party’s high moral standards. Such a party would not retain its high moral value if it waited until the suspect was cleared or convicted as we do in Nigeria.

Each time a ruling party in our clime nominates an election official essentially to help it rig elections, the relevant senate committee would rush to confirm the nominee no matter the number of petitions against the nomination. We are always told that the allegations could not be proved. The current ruling party, the All-Progressive Congress APC has been doing so since 2015 because it inherited the strategy from its predecessor, the People’s Democratic Party PDP. The behaviour continues to leave our nation as a laughing stock because the international community never finds it difficult to know the politicians within our Independent National Electoral Commission INEC. Yet, some people naively assume that they do not know why our elections are not free, fair, or credible. Why spend huge sums of money preparing for elections and invite foreign observe to monitor our processes when we know that our system has strategic holes built within?

In summary, we take note of the effort of the senate today to contribute towards the upkeep of families of deceased security officials who paid the supreme sacrifice. Our appreciation is somehow muffled because we suspect the donation came from the funds of taxpayers meaning that senators were not the real donors. Today, we are also of the opinion that whereas the senate should not disqualify a nominee because of suspicions but at the same time allegations of sexual harassments should not be politicized or trivialized. There is therefore no better time than now for our senate to insist that nominees for top political positions must ensure that no crimes are hanging around them at the point of confirmation of such nominations

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