How the Senate fared over the last one year

EZREL TABIOWO, in this piece, details the core achievements of Nigeria’s upper legislative chamber in the last one year of the country’s Independence Day celebration.

#Open NASS Th e National Assembly, in the last year, came under heavy pressure from advocacy groups whose demands over the past 4 years for an open and transparent National Assembly has remained in the mainstream of discussions.
According to the groups, the need for the National Assembly to go public with its budget was long overdue, and particularly important, because of the oversight role which the legislative arm of government plays over the executive.
Several Nigerians in their arguments for an #OpenNASS questioned the ability of legislators to hold the executive accountable when itself remains opaque in its internal budgetary operations.
Th e allegations of ‘budget padding’ further intensifi ed conversations as calls for the breakdown of the national assembly budget heightened and it raised genuine concerns that made compliance inevitable.
According to a commentator, Japhet Omojuwa, “the Lack of accountability in the NASS is very dangerous for our democracy because those who are elected to provide oversight over the executive arm’s implementation of our budget cannot be expected to provide leadership and ensure accountability when they have refused to be accountable with resources allocated to them.
“It is disheartening that a breakdown of the huge fi nancial expenses incurred by the NASS cannot be made available to the demanding public, and even more mortifying that some members do not know how the money made available to the Houses is eventually spent.
” Th e advocacy groups insisted that: Th e National Assembly should publish the breakdown of its 2016 and 2017 budgets; Maintain a functional website, provide contact information of its members, activate the switchboard in the National Assembly complex so citizens can engage their representatives and make attendance records public; and replace voice voting with electronic voting and making voting records public.
In response, the NASS on Th ursday, May 11, 2017, eventually released the breakdown of its Senate and House of Representatives 2017 budget to the public upon passage of this year’s national budget by both the Senate and House of Representatives.
Th e decision of the apex legislative body to so do was in line with the promise made by Senate President Bukola Saraki to run an ‘Open NASS’ in his capacity as the chairman of the National Assembly.
Th e entire budget of NASS for 2017 stood at N125 billion while that of 2016 was N115 billion.
Th e breakdown released is as follows: Management – N14, 919, 065, 013; Senate – N31, 398, 765, 886; House of Representatives – N49, 052, 743, 983; National Assembly Service Commission – N2, 415, 712, 873.
Other items are: Legislative Aides – N9, 602, 095, 928; Public Accounts Committee of Senate – N118, 970, 215; Public Accounts Committee of House of Reps – N142, 764, 258; General Services – N12, 584, 672, 079; N/A Legislative Institute – N4, 373, 813, 596; and Service Wide Vote – N391, 396, 169.
Economic reforms Determined to get Nigeria out of the woods of economic recession which has plagued the country in the last 2 years, the NASS as part of its strategy to end the country’s economic woes introduced, considered and subsequently passed a total of eight bills which were forwarded to President Muhammadu Buhari for his assent.

Th e passage of the bills was sequel to Senate’s 21-point resolution to the executive arm of government on how best Nigeria can revive its economic recession fortunes.
According to a statement issued by Yusuph Olaniyonu, the Special Adviser to the Senate President on Media and Publicity, “Th e bills, which are aimed at strengthening the laws of the federal republic, were considered and passed in a single sitting of the Senate – demonstrating commitment to employing all legislative mechanisms at its disposal to end the current economic recession in the country.
Th e bills presented to the president include the Telecommunication and Postal Off ences Act (Amendment) Bill, National Crop Varieties, Livestock Breeds (Registration) Act (Amendment) Bill, Produce (Enforcement of Export Standards) Act (Amendment) Bill, Prevention of Crimes Act (Amendment) Bill, Water Resources Act (Amendment) Bill, National Agricultural Land Development Authority Act (Amendment) Bill, (Import Control and Management) Act (Amendment) Bill and Agricultural and Rural Management Training Act (Amendment) Bill.
Th e eight bills, which are all primarily amendments to existing laws, are aimed at strengthening the enforcement mechanisms in sectors of the economy that can help boost Nigeria’s Internally Generated Revenue (IGR).
Last month, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) said Nigeria exited its worst economic recession in more than two decades, notching up growth of 0.
55 per cent in the second quarter of 2017.
In its report released in September this year, the data showed that the economic recovery was driven by improved performance of oil, agriculture, manufacturing and trade sectors of the economy.
Cyber security Apparently frustrated by the porous state of the country’s cyberspace, the Senate sometime in May this year raised alarm that Nigeria has lost about $450 million to 3,500 cyber attacks on its information and communication technology (ICT) space.
Th is represents over 70 per cent of hacking attempts on technology in the country.
Against this backdrop, the senate asked the National Security Adviser (NSA), Major-General Mohammed Babagana Monguno (retd), to, as a matter of urgency, alert all security agencies and fi nancial institutions in the country about the current and threatening dimensions of cyber attacks.
Th e Senate also asked its Committee on ICT and Cybercrime to immediately convoke a national stakeholders’ conference on cyber security to help stimulate a

collective refl ection among relevant stakeholders and articulate a national and broad-based approach to protect the country against cyber crimes.
Th e Senate, expressed concern that government servers were currently under serious threat.
However, it lamented that the ICT shortfall in Nigeria was enormous, while its cyberspace had become very porous, adding that the system lacked a well-structured and eff ective approach to cyber-crime control, according to the oversight fi ndings of the Senate Committee on ICT and Cybercrime.
Th e resolutions of the Senate were reached sequel to a motion by Senator Abdulfatai Buhari (APC Oyo North), entitled: “Worrisome dimension of cyber-crime and insecurity, urgent need for concerted eff orts to secure Nigeria’s cyberspace.
” Th e Deputy Senate President, Ike Ekweremadu, called for concerted eff orts at confronting the cyber war currently threatening the world and noted that criminals had on a daily basis been hacking into the e-mails and other accounts of very important people on social media.
“It is worrisome that cyber war is coming and we all need to be prepared to fi ght it.
It is expected that all stakeholders will rise and deal with it,” he said.
Earlier in his presentation, Senator Abdulfatai alerted the Senate that the positive posture of ICT revolution was being dampened by malicious activities of criminal elements in the society who invade cyberspace, presenting risks to businesses, national economies and security, such as malicious use of the social media, identity theft, electronic fraud, data damage or alteration, espionage, etc.
He said the Senate was aware that these elements have developed several hacking technics, one of the most recent being Ransomwm’e known as WannaCry Worm or WannaCrypt, which infects computer operating systems and networks, encrypted fi les and asked for ransom.
According to him, cyber attacks are taking a dangerous dimension all over the world, as Lloyds Banking Group and Barclays Bank of UK, for instance, suff ered 48-hour online attack from 11th to 13m of January this year, in which the criminals attempted to block about 20 million accounts.
He also noted that Lloyds, Halifax and Bank of Scotland were bombarded with millions of fake requests designed to grind the groups’ systems to a halt and asked for a huge ransom in bitcoins to end the attacks which were being prevented by the Denial of Access (DOS) system.
Meanwhile, the Senate Committee on ICT and Cybercrime, during a meeting with bank executives and Cyber experts last month, disclosed that it has concluded arrangements to expose all the commercial banks and operatives of the now collapsed ponzi scheme, popularly known as MMM (Mavrodi Mondial Movement) and make them to face appropriate sanctions.
Vice Chairman of the Committee, Senator Foster Ogola (PDP Bayelsa West), disclosed that as a way of preventing such fraud in future, the Senate would soon come up with a legislation making digital education compulsory in both primary and secondary schools.
Further, he said in a move to expose all those who were involved in the MMM fraud, an international expert in cyberspace and banking crimes is already in the country on the invitation of the committee.
“We need to secure our cyberspace and fi nancial sector against all forms of crimes or frauds as seen with MMM operators who came in collaborations with insiders, expressly entered the banking system, duped and bolted out,” Ogola said.

give feedbacks which have contributed immensely to my growth.
The literary journals and publication houses that found my works considered to be published have been a great pool of convictions for me to get published.
It is hard to forget Madam Brigitte Poirson’s constant and motherly encouragement to get my works published plus some few other persons I may not be privileged to mention here.
Sir Phunso Oris is a great mentor; he topped this very conviction in me and wheeled it into a reality.
Your poetry collection it titled, ‘Meditations’, suggesting that it is a work built on critical thinking.
Now, where do you stand on the school of thought that poetry is consciously created as against those who argue that poetry is spontaneous? I wouldn’t dispute the fact that poetry is spontaneous as much as I agree with the thought that poetry is consciously created.
William Wordsworth considers poetry as the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings and emotions recollected in tranquility, a close look at this thought; one will sure observe a balanced thought on what poetry is, based on both the spontaneous and consciously created perspectives.
In my own view, I will say poetry is both; working hand in hand.
What makes poetry poetry is first being spontaneous (when it is forced, it is not poetry) and thereafter comes in the conscious creation which I consider to be the peaceful recollection in William Wordsworth opinion through which various dimensions of styles or forms can be experimented.
‘Meditations’ is, therefore, the melding of both.
‘Meditations’ was much anticipated.
Now that it has been published, how will you describe its reception? The reception has been encouraging so far.
That is all I can say for now… Words Rhymes & Rhythm Limited published your debut poetry collection.
How will you rate the standard of publishing in Nigeria, especially in terms of development of writers, quality of writers’ outputs, as well promotion and readership same published books? What can be done to improve it? You see….
Words Rhymes and Rhythm Limited publishing platform is a commendable one and I am proud to say that it is one of the publishing platforms that is bringing observable improvement to the face of publishing in Nigeria.
I am aware that there are many hungry publishers as well as many hungry authors out there who are in one way or the other bringing a constant fall in standard in the Nigerian publishing platforms.
But then, I will still want to say that the standard of publishing in Nigeria is relatively improving in every respect.
I am familiar with WRR Green Authors Publishing Initiative sponsored by Kukugho Iruesiri Samson and also that of SFEV Publishing Contract sponsored by Eriata Orhibabor from which writers with outstanding works have benefited; I am quite sure that there are many others too.
What to improve on, I think, are the quality of works published and increased professionals in the industry.
If you had the opportunity, what would say to young, unpublished writers, especially in Nigeria? Walk lanes….
get patience… get winds….
light the elders…get madness.
Source: AUTHORPEDIA

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