FORTY-two million naira is a cool amount of money! The sight of it can make a gray-haired professor, who has taught all his life, faint. Barring last minute hitches, that sum is what each member of the House of Representatives make during the next quarter, the third for this year. Every Representative was carting home not less than N27 million, hitherto. Before the clamour for increase in salary and allowances, N27 million was considered  chicken feed by the legislators.

You may not know what a legislator will do with N42 million in a quarter, just a matter of three months! This, we can tell you quite well. First, if he is a focussed type, he will commit a large chunk of it to constituency projects, that is,  sinking  bore holes, buying motorcycles, sewing machines, generators and GSM phones;instituting scholarship awards for students,tarring obscured roads and doling out stipends to clans of hangers-on in his constituency. If he is  that magnanimous, it means he has a good plan for obtaining a return ticket to his seat in the parliament.

There are many happy-go-lucky lawmakers in the House of Representatives and in the Senate also. They only do a bit of constituency project and then reserve the greater portion of the N42 million for merry making. He is the most happening person around major joints and night clubs in the Federal Capital Territory. If he keeps you waiting in his residence, the reason is that he is sweating it out in a two- or three-some with women upstairs. His wife does not stay in Abuja with him to complain, anyway.

To tell you something, N42 million is hardly enough for a legislator who goes by the nomenclature; happy-go-lucky, moreso if he likes dashing abroad to hold parties, visit girl friends, or go on sight-seeing, only to come around boasting about all his escapades to colleagues. He keeps his children in the most expensive schools abroad, and if any one of them schools in Nigeria, it must be where the demand is not less than N1 million as fee per term. Notwithstanding, he hardly ever attends House sessions. If he does, that must be on Thursdays when the camera lenses of the NTA are ready to hover aggressively on members in live coverage of House plenary. To make up for his long absence from House activities, he calls for interviews to appear in a newspaper of his choice and them parts with dough as huge as N5,000!

All these tell much about the ostentatious life style of an average Nigerian lawmaker. Any lawmaker who misses that due to negligence or an act of omission must have missed a life time opportunity. You can now put yourself in the shoes of Honourable Dino Melaye and 11 members of the Progressives which he heads, to feel the pinch of the sudden suspension slammed on them.

Dino and his colleagues have been talking tough with thick smoke oozing from their nostrils. Yet, they should be understood as legislators who had missed something great. A female member of the House,Doris Uboh, who was equally suspended, offered an insight into the kind of miscalculation that brought members of the Progressives to this sorry state. No sooner was she  bundled out of the House than she started singing.. Then she intoned, “Why must Dimeji Bankole suspend any one of us who only dared to ask questions about how our money was spent?’

The truth is that each member of the suspended progressives has been sulking and wailing in silence. It is unthinkable that their colleagues will, in a matter of days, be cupping their hands to receive quarterly largesse without any one of them being around to benefit, less than 10 months to election period. This is why something must be done to assist the Progressive members to regain their House membership before it gets too late.

Somehow, a ray of hope is beaming for members of the progressives who could be bold enough to grab it with both hands. Today, the PDP will be meeting the warring factions in the House crisis with a view to mitigating the tension in members. That scope could be exploited by the underlings to bounce back. The truth is that Dr Okwesilieze Nwodo is yearning to make a mark within his first week in office as new PDP chairman. He is sure to use the House crisis to shine. The orator, mediator, and smooth operator that he is, he  will not falter in swaying either faction in the House to the PDP’s side. His party is in power; the House of Reps is PDP by majority. Who says there is no life in the PDP?