It is empowerment season again in Nigeria and the now familiar tale of stomach-making, rather than lawmaking has taken the centre stage once again.
A Senator will gather 500 constituents in a stadium and share 10kg bags of rice. A House of Reps member will donate 20 tricycles known as Keke, with his face boldly printed on them. A State Assembly member will share grinding machines, sewing machines, and N20, 000 cash in envelopes.
The crowd will clap. The cameras will roll. The drums will beat. And everybody goes home happy, calling it dividends of democracy.But it is not. It is a fraud.
The job of a legislator is not to share rice. It is not to share Keke. It is to make laws.
A Senator is elected to sit in the Red Chamber, debate bills, oversight the Executive, approve budgets, and make laws that change the lives of 200 million-plus Nigerians. A Federal House member is elected to do the same. When they abandon that job to become Father Christmas, they are stealing from us twice – first our votes, then our future.
Is it appropriate to see it this way? This is why.
It is so because rice is easy and lawmaking is hard. To write a good bill on out-of-school children, on power, on health insurance, on state police, on electoral reform, among others, you need research, consultation, courage, and intelligence. To buy 500 bags of rice, you only need money – our money.
And it works and sadly so. We have been conditioned to judge a legislator, not by how many bills he sponsored, or how many times he spoke on the floor, or whether he fought for his constituency in the budget, but by how many Keke and bags of rice he shared at Christmas.
So, we get what we reward. We reward showmanship, we get showmen. We reward stomach infrastructure, we get hunger.
And these come at some costs! To begin with, it kills accountability. A legislator who shares rice in December will not be asked in January why the road to his village is still bad, why the primary health centre has no drugs, or why the constituency project money disappeared. Rice silences questions.
Also, it creates dependency. 10kg of rice finishes in one week. A Keke breaks down in six months. A good law on agriculture, on transport, on youth employment lasts a generation. But our politicians prefer to give us fish for a day, so we will come begging again come the next election.
It corrupts the youth. When young men see that the only way to get a Keke is to praise-sing for a politician, to become his thug, his praise-singer, his social media attacker, they learn that loyalty to a man pays more than hard work or education.
It makes the National Assembly lazy. Go and check the records. How many Nigerian legislators have sponsored a single meaningful bill in four years? How many attend plenary? How many can explain the budget they approved? Yet, they will be the first to commission a borehole and share rice. Anyone who doesn’t do these is considered a poor performer.
We are not saying a legislator should not help his people. Constituency projects are legal. Helping widows and students is good. But that cannot replace the main job.
A doctor who abandons surgery to share Paracetamol in the market is not a good doctor. A teacher who abandons class to share biscuits is not a good teacher. A legislator who abandons lawmaking to share rice and Keke is not a good legislator – no matter how many bags he shares.
This must change!
To the voters, stop clapping for rice. Ask your representative how many bills they sponsored. Ask if they voted on the Electoral Act. What did they do when the budget was padded? If they cannot answer, do not re-elect them, even if they give you two bags of rice or keke.
To the legislators, they should know that their legacy will not be the Keke they shared. It will be the law they made. One good law on local government autonomy is worth more than 10,000 bags of rice. History does not remember sharers of rice. It remembers makers of laws.
And to Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, and the media, publish legislators’ performance scorecards before every election. How many bills, motions, attendance, constituency projects were completed. Let Nigerians compare rice against record.
Nigeria is in crisis because our laws are weak, outdated, and poorly implemented. We need legislators who will fix the laws, not legislators who will fix our stomachs for one day.
Rice finishes. Keke spoils. But a good law lives forever. The absence of such good laws is why we are suffering today. It is time we should therefore, demand good laws, not rice. We should be asking questions about a legislator’s competence; not how many trailer loads of rice have been provided. A lawmaker’s main task remains to make laws, good ones. That bag of rice may solve today’s problem but a good law will ensure that problems are minimized. Enough of our ignorance and gluttony.
