Contract scam was merely used to find fault with Etteh - Nasir Arab, outgoing Clerk of the National Assembly

Nasir ArabRetiring Clerk of the National Assembly (CNA), Alhaji Nasir Arab is worried about the high turnover rate of Nigeria legislators with its consequences on quality of representation. He spoke to selected journalists including Sunday Tribune for the first time since proceeding on his current pre-retirement leave, blaming the situation on lack of stability in the nation’s polity. Assistant Editor LEON USIGBE presents the excerpts of his interview.

MANY people believe that the National Assembly is unwieldy and that it, in fact, competes with the federal civil service in size. Did you envisage that the country would be saddled with this gargantuan bureaucratic structure at the beginning?
When we started, we were very few. We had to transfer some staff from other departments to the chambers because we did not have enough staff to work as committee secretaries at that time. It was a real challenge to us and so we had to work round the clock to keep the National Assembly going. It was not easy actually. We worked day and night to make sure that we eventually succeeded in getting the assembly going until when the National Assembly Commission came on board and we were finally independent of the Federal Civil Service. Before this time, we were all staff of the Federal Civil Service under the Federal Civil Service Commission but in 2002, when the National Assembly Service Commission was established, we became a little bit independent and we could recruit the kind of staff we required in the assembly. That was why the massive recruitment took place and over 2000 members of staff were recruited over a period of one year. This recruitment also posed a serious challenge to us because all those recruited did not have the experience of working in the parliament.

You know parliamentary jobs are unique in nature. So, we had to concentrate on training. Training has been one of my cardinal principles since I became the Clerk of the National Assembly because we don’t have university qualification as a legislative officer. You have to learn from the experience and so I made it a point of duty in my administration to train the staff. Up to the time I left, a huge amount of money was set aside every quarter to train various categories of staff from time to time. We organized trainings abroad and also invited experts from other parliaments to come and give some lectures on their experiences in their parliaments and how they conduct businesses in their parliaments. We also sent staff abroad on attachment to learn from the experience of older parliaments like the Westminster in England, the US Congress, the Canadian Parliament, the Australian Parliament, among others so that they would learn the art of the job in these older parliaments. It has yielded results. The National Assembly is now stabilized. Everybody knows his job and he knows what he is supposed to do at what time.

What do you have to say to the assertion that civil servants are reluctant to retire even when they have reached the point of retirement and how were you able to manage pressure from politicians?
It is true that to service politicians is always a very difficult task. When we came in, we knew what we would face and we had to speak with our bankers and made them to realize that the parliament is a unique place and that at any point in time, they would require money to travel or do certain activities. So, we had always put them on notice that any time we needed money, it should be available and that they should be prepared to work beyond normal hours so that any time we needed money, we would get it. This kind of arrangement is not peculiar to the parliament. Even in the Presidency, sometimes when urgent matters arise, the banks would have to come to their aid.

You know where you would have problems with politicians is when they have things like public hearings or they want to go on tour. They would give you a very short notice. For instance, somebody travelling to US would give you a day or two notice and he wants his money ready by tomorrow. So, you have to work round the clock to make sure that his trip does not fail. So, all these things we have to continue to manage. We also tell them the truth. When it comes to accounting for the money collected, we tell them to retire it because it is an advance and we have to follow them to make sure that this thing is done so that we keep our records properly. Of course, our sitting in the chambers is a daily affair and so, we have to prepare the necessary things for the sessions and other technical requirements to smoothen their operations. These are some of the challenges we face with politicians in parliament.

On the issue of retirement, there is a law in the civil service. When you join the civil service, you are expected to serve for a certain period which is not more than 35 years. Once you attain that period, you are supposed to go or if you have attained the age of 60 years, you should know that you are supposed to go. So, I don’t see why there should be any controversy about retirement. Life is in the hand of God. It is whatever that God has arranged for you in life that you will meet. It is not that you have to cling to the civil service in order to survive. Those who are not in the service are surviving, so, why not you?

Even though you took this decision to proceed on pre-retirement leave voluntarily, there were some row especially in the media that you did not want to go. What do you think was actually responsible for this?
I think it was maybe because of miscommunication and misinformation. I think that I did not need to call a press conference to announce that I am going on leave because it is a natural thing for me to go. I quietly packed my things. It is pre-retirement leave. I have not yet retired. I will retire in January (2010). I am just on leave. Do I have to announce to the world that I am going on leave? It is ridiculous honestly because I prepared myself; I packed everything, all my personal effects before that day. May be there was a particular interest that wanted you to leave by all means.
Well, I don’t know. I don’t know.

There are some people who believe that lawmakers make mistakes because they are not properly guided by the National Assembly civil servants. What do you have to say?
I don’t think they will say that now. That was before. I don’t think the lawmakers will make that comment now. It may have been so in the past but with the training we have been going through and the attachments outside to see how they run other parliaments and coming home to implement the new innovations in the system, I don’t think the lawmakers would complain of not being properly guided. They can’t complain that the staff posted to their committees are not doing the right thing.

I asked the question because of what happened in the case of former Speaker Olubunmi Etteh where it was alleged that she was not properly guided in the contract award that led to her impeachment.

That is not true. They just used that to find fault to remove her. That one is political. We explained over and over and over that the contracts were properly done. It has been repeated several times. The issue is between her and her colleagues, honestly.

How were you able to remain neutral in the several impeachment controversies in both the Senate and the House of Representatives during your time?
Impeachments are political issues. It is the business of members. We don’t interfere. They would continue to do their wranglings and we would just watch. When they eventually impeach their leaders, that is when they would invite us to conduct a fresh election to elect a new leader and that is where we are involved. But as for the wrangling and so on, we are out of it.

How does the high rate of turnover of legislators affect the office of the Clerk of the National Assembly?
It does because if you have a new set of legislators, you are starting again. You have to get them to learn the art of lawmaking and it takes time. So, if you have a new set, before taking off, it takes a long time for them to learn the ropes before they start the actual work. That is the issue that they themselves complained of because if you go to parliaments in other parts of the world, you will see legislators spending 30 years or even more as members of parliament. Even the last member of the Kennedy political clan, Edward Kennedy, spent over 40 years as a Senator. Our problem is instability in the polity. If we have stability and we know where we are heading to, the question of saying ‘you have gone once or twice and it is now my turn’ will not arise. It is the quality of your representation that people will judge to either return you or choose another person. It is not that you have stayed long. The longer you stay, the more qualitative parliamentarian you become.