The greatest desire of an average political office seeker in Nigeria is to be a member of the parliament. The other alternatives could only be offered after paying huge sacrifices. A contestant, who is not rich in billions, at least, should not dare either a presidential or gubernatorial contest. The two positions are really out of reach for this category of people.

Even then, those who show interest in being either a senator or House of Representatives member pay huge scarifies too. The process is very cumbersome. Some, who had managed to be, had, at one point or the other, sold their souls to reputable godfathers. Some had turned to  ritualists, while several others had become spiritualists, just as many others got there through sheer mother luck. No matter how you get to the National Assembly to answer as a member, that place, called the Dome, is a place to be.

The reason is simple. You do not require a special skill to be a senator or a rep member. After all, some bloody illiterates had been members, have been members, are members and will still be members till day of reckoning. You may be a member and not open your mouth to contribute to debates. All you could learn to be a successful member is either aye or nay; the language of voting in either of the two legislative houses. If you are a member of committees, just follow your colleagues to wherever they call a place of oversight, enjoy every patronage that comes from there and that is all. Your membership is more pronounced and enhanced, if you can manage to show face on the floor for as long as two minutes. Just mark your register early enough and scram to where ever your spirit so direct you.

Even then, you are entitled to propitious opportunities, unthinkable at that, for the rest of your four-year tenure. First, the world would treat you as special specie. They will address you as ‘Distinguished’, never mind if your only knack is to sleep around and even dare to marry a toddler and that is if you are an elected senator. As a representative, they will address you as ‘Honourable’. It matters not if you are a rapist, street tout, or a marauder! It is your right to be address as an Honourable, no matter who is not pleased.

More importantly, as a member of the National Assembly, you automatically earn the fattest of pay. You automatically possess the key to the outside world such that you can travel to any part of the world within a short spate of time, even on mere sight-seeing.

If Nigeria is what it is today, all is because politics has never been taken as the most serious business. That is the reason behind the very elastic time Nigerian legislators have been taking to amend the 1999 constitution.

The painful truth is that since Nigeria evolved as a nation, no civilian government had ever had the grace to successfully amend a part of the constitution. From 1999 till date, the executive and the legislative arm have been engaged in the round and round movements with an attempt at amending the 1999 Constitution, which the military crafted within the twinkle of an eye. Since then, we had counted more than six failed attempts at giving Nigeria a brand new constitution.

Two months ago, both the leadership of the Senate and House were almost competing to claim the glory of success in amending some section of the constitution, and that is after the two had thrown hats into the ring to engage in supremacy battle over who should spearhead the process of constitution review and amendment. Up till now, the Senate will lay claim to the glory of doing so, while the House will ascribe the success to itself. The situation was like that until the Draft Amendment was passed to the 36 states of the federation for endorsement.

Anyone who thought that the time of Eureka had come on constitution amendment in Nigeria soon found out that the struggle was just beginning. That came when the House raised an alarm that the Senate was being mischievous with the draft copy made available to the states, and then called for withdrawal. The Senate became angry that the House could look towards it with some mischievous eyes and fired back with painful words. David Mark called Bankole, master of mischief maker. And if reason had not prevailed, the two arms would have started another round of brawl on constitution amendment which might take the nation another year to overcome.

Last week, both Mark and Bankole put on gorgeous ceremonial garbs to receive the inputs from the states on Draft Amendment. The ceremonial event turned into a big flop; the states were not ready.

And that happened because both the Senate and the House failed to set up a Special Bureau to monitor the states and manage time with the crucial assignments dropped on their laps. On that, you should blame the Dome and not the state Houses of Assembly. Could the National Assembly do better? No, because the character, image and mindset of members are same, for now.