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On its part, the Nigerian Senate demanded nothing less than a chunky pound of flesh from the bluffing minister. The senators wanted their irreverent minister slanderer fired immediately from his enviable FCT post by the Nigerian president. And when the president appeared to ignore their entreaty, they proclaimed a 48-hour strike and shut down activities in the upper chambers of the Nigerian legislature on the very day they had gathered to consider banning strike actions by organized labor. Only in Nigeria is one treated to such a pathetic melodrama on a regular basis.

Strangely enough, when the senators returned from their strike, they denied that they ever went on strike. But the standoff that had ensued remained tense even after some desperate efforts by FCT Minister El-Rufai to offer his rambling apology on the senate floor. The senators pretended to have dug in with their demand that the minister be fired from his position. They claimed that they were keeping their powder dry pending the time the presidency would respond to their demand. Hence an impression of a long and protracted dirty fight between the senate and the presidency over the fate of FCT Minister El-Rufai was created.

But how that standoff was ultimately resolved, if indeed it has, has remained a mystery till today. However, there seem to be a few possible scenarios that commend themselves to our attention as the possible ways the matter was handled. Going by the history of political altercations in Nigeria, it appears that either the Nigerian presidency re-activated its winning tactic of buying the silence and agreement of the aggrieved senators with fabulous bribery packages or that President Obasanjo and his handpicked PDP chairman, Innocent Audu Ogbeh, arm-twisted and applied their universal formula of "apology and 'all-in-the-family' politics" to bring the whole matter to some form of a resolution. Whichever way the problem was handled, it appears that the Nigerian senate has dropped its insistence that El-Rufai be relieved of his ministerial position in the Obasanjo administration.

One thing the Nigerian senate's altercation with El-Rufai had revealed in our view was the fact that the legislature as currently constituted at all levels of the Nigerian democracy was not a place that boasted of people endowed with the skills that originated from the intellectual faculty. In fact the way the senate had handled the El-Rufai problem proved in our view that they were neither deep in the sourcing of facts that inform legislative activities nor were they a people honed in the dignifying legislative procedures that characterize many democracies across the world. Rather, Nigerian legislators seem to be a people who deal with rumors and blackmail. Instead of using their committee gatherings for perfecting legislations they appear to relish using them only to talk about how to make backhand money through bribery and corruption. Because they are so entrenched in trying to extort money from the members of the executive branch, they find it hard to find their voices even when such are needed to move our democracy forward.

In fact, how to determine when the palms of the Nigerian legislators have been fully greased seems quite simple. It shows forth loud and clear when they either allow a crisis they had threatened a showdown for to fizzle and die off without a whoop or they fail to voice a strong opinion against the executive branch's penchant to spiral off on its usual mindless high-speed reforms that tend to inflict draconian hardships on average Nigerians. When Nigerian legislators duck their responsibility of representing the direct views of the populace, and when in the process they cede their checks and balances responsibility to such limited and overly emasculated bodies as the Nigeria Labor Congress, it is hard not to conclude that their silence has been bought and paid for by the executive branch. When the legislators are that cheap for an-off-the-shelf- buy-off by the executive branch, it becomes hard not to think of them in the light suggested by El-Rufai.

The real stuff the average Nigerian legislator seems made of has been quite on display in the past couple of weeks. For instance, on the eve of the recent petroleum prices strike that paralyzed the nation last week, the Nigerian senate only managed to put forward a motion from their scantly attended session BEGGING the Nigerian president to reconsider his plans to raise the pump prices of petroleum products in the nation. That was the beginning and end of the senate's role as a legislative watchdog of our nation's democracy. They simply begged and recoiled back to their corruption-riddled cocoons like criminal dogs whose tails are stuck in between their legs.

On its part, the House of Representatives only managed to pass a similar motion ADVISING the presidency to reconsider the price hike because according to it, it inflicted enormous hardships on Nigerians. All in all, the Nigerian legislature was MIA (missing in action) as the entire nation headed to the precipice over the recent petroleum crisis. The whole dirty job of opposing the draconian price hike was left to the Nigerian Labor Congress that has suffered immensely in the hands of the present administration. Legislators who could have been in the middle of the fight just fled perhaps with their bags hanging low with bribery money from the executive branch. This seems what legislative oversight means for the average Nigerian legislator.

How could one explain such an undemocratic and cowardly obeisance of the second tier of our nation's democracy if not that those legislators were paid off to assume a low profile while the executive branch ran riot with a policy that visited terrible hardship on the struggling people of Nigeria? Is it not reasonable to conclude that the Nigerian legislature, having been bribed to go along with the executive's policy flow, is in a kind of conspiracy to subvert democracy in Nigeria? In the civilized world, a group of people that behaved in such a way would be deemed corrupt through and through. And by extension, Nigerian legislators that BEG and ADVISE the executive branch while the streets of Nigeria are burnt down with public discontent cannot escape the charge of dereliction of duty and corruption.

But corruption does not seem to be the only bane of the type of legislators we have in Nigeria. Nigerian legislators seem to have another problem far more basic than the issue of corruption. It is that of ignorance. It can be said that the overwhelming majority of the Nigerian legislators suffer from crass ignorance. Many of them are not only ignorant of the nature of the presidential democracy and the power it confers on them as partners with the executive branch, they are unfortunately ignorant of some of the obvious facts in Nigeria that could help inform their legislative roles. Being starkly ignorant of some necessary facts in the nation, they tend to live in a fools' paradise pretending that their corrupt complicity with the executive branch helps move the democracy of our nation forward. This is the sad irony of Nigeria. The people who are supposed to apply the necessary breaks on the Obasanjo administration's run-off-the-mills reform agenda do not seem to have any clue where the breaks are. And even when they seem to have enough knowledge in this regard, they appear too corrupt and complicit to apply them.

Take for instance what was reported recently about one of the leaders of the Nigerian senate that enjoys the trust of the Obasanjo administration. On the eve of the nationwide petroleum prices' strike action organized by the Nigeria Labor Congress with other allied organizations, Nasir Ibrahim Mantu, the deputy president of the Nigerian Senate, was reported to have denied that many Nigerians were starving to death as a result of the present economic realities in the nation. According to Vanguard newspaper, Ibrahim Mantu, on Thursday of penultimate week, tongue-lashed his colleague, Musliu Obanikoro, on the senate floor when the latter suggested that Nigerians were dying of hunger as a result of the administration's headstrong reforms that did not include any cushions or palliatives. The deputy senate leader, who was presiding over the senate session in the continued invisibility of his leader, Adolphus Wabara, who, apparently has long been tucked away in an undisclosed location following the threat and event of the petroleum strike, retorted to Obanikoro's insinuation thus: "I don't know anywhere in Nigeria where people are dying from hunger. We have the percentage of people who are dying from HIV/AIDS but we don't know of Nigerians dying from hunger" (Vanguard, October 11).

However, in an aching irony accentuating the insincerity and insensitivity of the present economic reforms in Nigeria, Nasir Ibrahim Mantu, who had in the previous week denied that Nigerians were dying of hunger was appointed by the Obasanjo administration to head the panel that would marshal out the cushions and palliatives for the harsh economic reforms. As if that was not strange enough, Ibrahim Mantu, his checkered history notwithstanding, was among the toppers of the list of the 191 Nigerians slated to receive federal honors from the hand of the Obasanjo administration. It did not bother the administration that the inclusion of the apparently cold-hearted Mantu who appeared not to have any knowledge and feelings for the hardship many Nigerians faced could only highlight the administration's callous insensitivity towards the plight of Nigerians. Thank goodness, an unflappable world legend, Professor Chinua Achebe, has turned down the spurious awards of the administration. One hopes that other greats in Nigeria would follow the noble example of Professor Achebe. A national award ceremony that paraded such dubious politicians as Ibrahim Mantu could only amount to a charade.

Unfortunately, the Obasanjo administration could not ask itself the simple question: how can Ibrahim Mantu who is holed-in in the cozy mansions of Abuja and does not understand what an average Nigerian is going through serve as an effective and meaningful chairman to a panel intended to provide amelioration for the overly hurting poor in Nigeria? It is a fact well known since time immemorial that no one gives what one does not have. Ibrahim Mantu appears completely ignorant of the brazen reality of sufferings among ordinary Nigerians. It smacks of the height of insensitivity for the administration to put him front and center in any effort aimed at countering the terrible effects of the reform on the poor Nigerian citizens.

However, what should be of interest to every Nigerian is the condition that underlies Ibrahim Mantu's denial that Nigerians are dying of hunger. He claims that he does not know anywhere Nigerians are dying of hunger. His argument seems to be: since the percentage of Nigerians dying of HIV/AIDS is known and a similar percentage of those dying of hunger not known, it means that hunger does not exist. Everyone can agree that the force behind Ibrahim Mantu's illogical argument is ignorance. The obvious reason why the senator does not know that Nigerians are dying of hunger is crass ignorance, pure and simple. It was his crass ignorance on such a nagging reality that hurts every Nigerian deeply that made him hide behind the so-called absence of statistics to deny its existence. Is it not outrageous that the deputy senate president of Nigeria does not know that a hefty percentage of the 120 million Nigerians are dying of hunger as a result of the irrational economic policies of the Obasanjo administration?

In our view, Mantu's denial of the existence of hunger in Nigeria because of a lack of statistics not only makes him callously out of touch but also it paints him as crassly ignorant of the realities of the present-day Nigeria. If Mantu had been a true representative of the average Nigerians as their senator and chief voice in the Nigerian government, he would not wait for statistics to know that Nigerians of all stripes are hurting because of the harsh economic reforms being irrationally pursued by the Obasanjo administration. The role of a legislator is to measure the pulse of his people and bring their feelings to the attention of the federal government. He or she is the eye and ear of the central government in the local areas. A good legislator goes to war literally against the central government on behalf of his people.

But in Nigeria, the whole democratic process is being turned upside down. Instead of legislators fighting on the side and on behalf of the people they represent, they seem to enjoy aligning with the central government to fight their people. A senior legislator like Mantu does not know that his people are dying of hunger because he is in fact not their true representative. He does not care for them. If he cared he would know the true situation of his people before any other person else. If he had been truly a democratic representative of his people, he would be hollering everyday on the floor of the senate for the government to provide some relief to the suffering peoples of Nigeria. But Ibrahim Mantu seems to be nothing but an ambassador of the Federal Government to his people. He communicates government's oppressive measures to his people. He is not his people's representative and their advocate but instead their dark angel of bad news. People like Ibrahim Mantu have made themselves the representatives of the central government rather than those of their people. And this is the bane and tragedy of the Nigerian democracy!

However, Ibrahim Mantu is in fact not an aberration among his peers. Rather he seems quite typical of Nigerian legislators. Nearly every legislator serving in the present democratic dispensation in Nigeria is afflicted with crass ignorance on the real situation of the ordinary Nigerians on the one hand, and another layer of ignorance on how to go about performing their legislative duties in accordance with the ethos of a presidential democracy. In fact, a typical Nigerian legislator is afflicted with an additional ignorance on how to enhance his or her status in the society. Hence many Nigerian legislators tend to end up falsifying their traditional and academic achievements to boost and massage their bloated egos. Living in their corrupt world of honor and privilege, they relish parading titles they have not earned. The result has been, as crass ignorance reigns in legislative houses across the nation, Nigerians harvest economic hardships, corruption, confusion and insensitivity in return.

Lady Senator Iyabo Anisuowo

Two clearly different news reports this past week tended to illustrate the dangerous consequences of the pervasive ignorance among Nigerian legislators. First, it was widely reported in the Nigerian media that a male senator physically assaulted her female colleague in the lobby of the Nigerian senate chambers because of money. According to a report in Vanguard quoting an unnamed eyewitness account, Senator Isa Mohammed of Niger State, vice chairman of the Senate Committee on States and Local Governments, allegedly slapped his chairman, Lady Senator Iyabo Anisuowo (PDP, Ogun State). According to the alleged victim of the assault, Senator Anisuowo, the incident took place as her committee delegation was set to pay a visit to Nigeria's Vice President Atiku Abubakar.

In Vanguard's supposedly eye witness account,

"Senator Mohammed had intercepted Senator Anisulowo in the lobby of the National Assembly complex and questioned her over her alleged unilateral withdrawal of committee funds for personal use: 'Why are you spending the money of the Committee without consulting the members of the Committee. You first withdrew N700, 000 and again N500, 000. Is it your father's money,' Senator Mohammed shouted at Anisulowo. As Senator Anisulowo turned her back on Senator Mohammed, Senator Mohammed drew her back to face him and landed a slap on her face drawing the attention of nearby policemen and Senators who rushed to separate the two distinguished Senators. Both Senators shortly drove off" (Vanguard, October 15).

However, in a statement released to the press and published in some newspapers on Saturday, October 16, 2004, Senator Mohammed denied that he slapped Senator Anisulowo. He declared: "I wish to state categorically that I did not slap Senator Iyabo Anisulowo." The statement continued:

"On Thursday, October 14, at about 10.30 a.m., members of the Senate Committee on State and Local Government Administrations were gathered at the National Assembly to embark on an official assignment when we had a heated argument over committee issues…. Could it have been possible for me to slap Senator Iyabo Anisulowo, and immediately thereafter drive in the same vehicle for further committee assignment? Honestly, what she did by accusing me of slapping her is an after thought. She only tried to play on sentiments having known her wrongdoing. I accept I had a heated argument with Senator Anisulowo at the National Assembly. Our voices may have been raised but it never went beyond mere argument between two Senators…. For the record, I repeat that I did not slap Senator Iyabo Anisulowo" (ThisDay, October 16, 2004).

There is no doubt that Mohammed's statement fails to overcome the hurdle of the so-called eyewitness's account on which Vanguard relied for its report. His attempt at rhetorically questioning whether it could have been possible for him to slap his chairman and still ride in the same vehicle with her to another location seems ludicrous at best. The story according to Vanguard report claims that during the altercation, a policeman and many other senators rushed to separate the two after which both rode together in the same car to another meeting. What is impossible about the two senators reaching some kind of a quick accommodation after their sudden altercation that had included a slap from Senator Mohammed? It seems to me that Mohammed's argument that because both of them had ridden in the same vehicle to another venue after their alleged altercation meant there was no slapping incident is absolutely illogical and ridiculous. Both events are not mutually exclusive by any stretch of the imagination. The fact that a senator of Nigeria could produce such a ridiculous argument in his defense can only suggest how ignorant he appears to be.

Another report that demonstrated the tragic role of ignorance among the Nigerian legislators was published in ThisDay newspaper of October 15. According to the story, in a desperate effort to enhance their poor CVs, some members of the Kano State House of Assembly and their staff were falling victim to the ploys of a certificate fraudster called Philip Onumkwo, who according to the report, specialized in collecting huge fees for fake awards of honorary doctorate degrees to his desperate clients. According to the report, Onumkwo had already awarded a PhD degree to the Chief Whip of the Kano State House of Assembly, Bala Kosawa, while the other members of the House eagerly awaited theirs. The report quoted the State Security Service [SSS] Director in Kano State who arrested and paraded Onumkwo before news men as declaring: "Onunkwu, before his arrest, has been collecting N10, 000 from individuals, with a view to awarding them PhD or fellowship of the Institute of Human and Natural Resources," which northern liaison office, he claimed to head (ThisDay, October 16).

In our view, what unites legislators like Senator Mohammed and the members of Kano State House of Assembly with the deputy senate president of Nigeria, Nasir Ibrahim Mantu, is crass ignorance. Ibrahim Mantu could not realize that Nigerians were dying of hunger as a result of the administration's harsh economic simply because he seems crassly ignorant. There is no other way to characterize his denial that many people have lost their lives simply because they found it hard to make ends meet. The same crass ignorance afflicts Senator Mohammed who reportedly physically assaulted a female colleague of his because they disagreed on how to divvy-up their committee budget. The senator's attempt to employ a flawed argument to refute the allegation against him tended to provide further proof that he is deeply afflicted by crass ignorance.

Perhaps the clearest proof of how pathetic ignorance is taking its toll on Nigerian legislators is the racketeering incident in the Kano State House of Assembly. The fact that the honorable members of a Nigerian House of Assembly could be so easily scammed by a conman hawking fake university degrees is a proof beyond any doubt that they are absolutely an ignorant bunch. Only the ignorant and foolish could look at a computer-generated decorated paper and regard it as a genuine university degree certificate. And the fact that the members of a legislative house are willing to upgrade themselves academically through such a laughable channel shows that they are patently an ignorant lot. Isn't it tragically ignorant that members of a legislature in 21st century Nigeria could be so irresponsibly foolish as to seek to acquire university degrees through the help of a conman? What does this say about the caliber of people who serve as legislators in Nigeria?

The situation of Kano State and her legislators is particularly tragic because it was the same state, which produced the first speaker of the House of Representatives in 4th Republic Nigeria who became disgraced and deposed because of certificate racketeering. It seems that legislators of Kano State do not like to acquire their academic degrees the hard way. They would rather buy them from supermarkets or fake university degree hawkers that abound in North America and Nigeria. But this only shows crass ignorance in our view. If these legislators were less ignorant, they would realize that in today's world there is no hiding place for a fake degree holder. The whole enterprise of acquiring certificates through forgery will only end in monumental disgrace and embarrassment. Any failure to anticipate such a situation is in our view a clear demonstration of crass ignorance.

Nigerians cannot lament enough the havoc pathetic ignorance is inflicting on the democracy of our nation. The only reason why the Obasanjo administration has been quite successful in unleashing arbitrary hardship on Nigerians through an irrationally pursued reform agenda is simply because crass ignorance reigns unchallenged in the legislative houses of our nation. If Nigerian legislators had been informed in their roles as representatives of the people, if they had been people of integrity, they would have long realized that their primary duty is not to foster a good working relationship with the executive branch but to protect the Nigerian people. But since they are afflicted by pathetic ignorance, and since they are overly limited in their knowledge and vision of what a presidential democracy is all about, they occupy themselves daily with how to make the best of their opportunity as legislators. And this amounts to corruption galore in the democracy of Nigeria. There are three things that hobble the democracy of Nigeria today. They are executive arbitrariness, corruption and ignorance. And the greatest of them all is IGNORANCE.