African parliaments must stand up to defend democratic institutions – Dogara

Speaker of House of Representatives, Mr Yakubu Dogara, on Sunday, urged African Parliaments to stand up to defend democratic institutions as they remained the hope of saving the people from dictatorship.

He also called on African countries to invest more in building democracy and its institutions.

Dogara stated this when he hosted a parliamentary delegation from Liberia, comprising members of Joint Committee on Public Accounts, Expenditure and Audit, led by Sen. Henry Yallah, undertaking a study tour in Nigeria.

He said that for democracy to be solid and sound, the institutions must be strong as their failures would always be blamed on the parliaments which failed to rise up in their defence.

“Democracy as they say is not something that you gain from the ballot box; as a matter of fact, the ballot box sometimes has produced some enemies of democracy, those who have completely discarded the tenets of democracy.

“So, we have to invest more in building democracy and democratic institutions. Where institutions are strong, democracy itself will be made strong.

“And, to be very candid, Parliament is the hope of saving the people from dictatorships.

“Where democracies fail, it is common place to blame it on parliament; it becomes the fault of members of parliament who are not willing to stand up to principles and be defenders of those democratic institutions.”

The speaker, who decried the delicate nature of democratic institutions all over the world, advocated for the establishment of a body that would be vested with the responsibility of defending democracy against dictatorship.

“Democracies all over the world are very fragile and that includes even democracies in advanced countries that we regard to have advanced democracies.

“Even in the United States, we are beginning to see that there is the fight to keep the loyalty with the people rather than to any form of democratic malfunction.

“Even things that we thought were completely impossible to happen in advanced democracies, we are beginning to see them, like breaches.

“That, therefore, tells us that we even need to institute a body that may be known as the defenders of democracy.

“I don’t know how we can go about that, I’m just thinking loudly about some of these issues, but to be candid, even though it is not the best form of government, it is the best that is known to man.

“Anybody who doubts this can try dictatorship. Those who have lived in a dictatorship will tell you how bad it is – where the will of an individual is the law.

“As a matter of fact, you don’t even need the parliament; in which case all of us will be jobless as it is just the will of an individual that is the Law. It is the will of the individual that is argued out in the courts,’’ he said.

Dogara said that a performing budget was also needed to sustain democracy and achieve stability, and that to win citizens’ confidence, government must deliver to the people’s yearnings and expectations, especially in terms of security and welfare.

“A performing budget is needed to sustain even the very idea of the democracy itself, because it has to be a government that delivers to the people in terms of expectations, in terms of security and welfare.

“When you have few people mismanage the resources belonging to government, the end result will be that the expectations of the people will be cut off.

“No quality service, welfare and that obviously will result in distress, and we have seen this distress manifest in so many African countries where the entire process of expenditure, transparency and accountability is a bit opaque.’’

The speaker, therefore, explained to the visiting parliamentarians, the workings of Public Accounts Committee in the country.

According to him, in Nigeria, Public Accounts is a Committee that is headed by a member of the opposition; we do not give it to a member of the ruling party, and obviously the reason is on account of transparency.

“It deals with the task of over-sighting expenditure, so we can’t have the same members in charge of over-sighting the way expenditures are made.

“If that were to be the case, you can’t run away from the incidence of conflict of interest as it is one of the critical requirements and central pillar of our jurisprudence.

“So, when you have people of the same political party investigating themselves, no matter how fair-minded they are, there is no way a reasonable person sitting outside there will say they have done justice in that manner.

“So that is the foundation upon which our Public Accounts Committee operates, and in most cases, they are in tandem with the Auditor-General of the Federation which we are set to empower and to insulate using the Constitution,’’ he said.

Dogara also highlighted some of the processes followed by the committee to achieve results in its mandate and assignment to the delegation.

“It encompasses the operation of all agencies, including the National Assembly, and the reports are submitted to the Public Accounts Committee of the House.

“Once they receive the reports from the Auditor-General, they embark on thorough investigation of the figures; as I said before, this is to ensure transparency.’’

Earlier, leader of the delegation and Chairman, Liberian Parliament’s Joint Committee on Public Accounts, Expenditure and Audit, Yallah, had said they were in Nigeria on a tour to build capacity as a young democracy.