On the go go the constitution of Nigeria empowers the Senator to:
1. Participate in deciding matters of national interest.
2. Represent the interests of people in his or state/territory.
3. Propose, debate and vote on bills and amendments.
4. examine issues in committees and scrutinise—closely examine—the executive government.
In fact the Senator has exceptionally high authority, sometimes higher than the President of the country owing to the fact that a Senator can impeach the President (though commander-in-chief) , yet the president cannot impeach nor do otherwise to a serving Senator. We have seen the Senate try cases of impeachment against Presidents Obasanjo and Jonathan, we have also seen the senate invoke the doctrine of necessity to install a new President during the Yar'adua era. All these points to the fact that a Senator is not one elected but helpless element at the behest or mercy of the executive as they would have us think in Abia South.
To be a senator in Nigeria calls for creative abilities, possess certain qualities and traits that is essential to finding his way through his contemporaries (the rest 108 members that constitutes the House). This also explains why a member can waste nearly two decades in the red chamber without giving a good account of his representation to the people who voted him into office and still have the effrontery to call for another tenure.
This draws my attention to Dr. Alex Otti's lesson at Aba Sports Club where he outlined the three Cs of an effective political leader in a modern democracy; COMPETENCE, CHARACTER, CAPACITY. He further outlined COURAGEOUSNESS and CAPITAL as part of the Cs that should be in the kitty in recruiting leadership that effectively works.
In our next article we shall begin a journey of exposing these nomenclatures to address the importance of the appeal to elect Engr. Chinedu Onyeizu into the Nigerian Senate.
Francis Dimkpa is a sociopolitical issues commentator, he writes from Obingwa in Abia State.
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