BILL SAIDI LOOKS AT ABUSE OF PARLIAMENT!

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By Bill Saidi


THE Nigerian election farce, fiasco or charade -- even they spoke of it with a sneer, a smirk -- reminded me of this quip by John Makumbe a few years ago:

The President can run this country without Parliament.


And now, we hear noises the Chinese will finance the construction of a new Parliament building.

Zanu PF intends to boost the number of Senators and Members of the House of Assembly.

That strategy is not in the national interests, but those of Zanu PF and the dignified exit of their president. The party has other strategies up its sleeve, most dedicated only to its survival.

Who needs a pretension monstrosity when ordinary people are jobless, food-less, water-less and power-less?

Moreover, who needs Parliament when Zanu PF can bash its way to power?

The Nigerian charade was held after Olusegun Obasanjo failed to persuade, coerce, browbeat or seduce his people into giving him a third term.

His retribution was to unleash his wrath on his Vice-President, Atiku Abubakar, using trumped-up charges, which, like defective glue, could not stick.

Abubakar, like many other Nigerians, saw an Obasanjo third term as an unmitigated disaster.

Moreover, he only managed to get his name on the ballot after the Supreme Court decided there was no reason for him not to challenge for the plum job.

Obasanjo's party did well in other elections before the presidential poll. How those elections could have been fairer and freer than the big one is impossible to imagine.

Obasanjo himself admitted the elections were "flawed", now acknowledged as a euphemism for "rigged".

But the former soldier ruler said this was not enough to make a difference to the outcome, by which he meant "you can take it or lump it".

Yet, as I write this, Abubakar and his opposition partner, Mohamed Buhari -- himself a former military dictator -- were announcing a plan to call out their people into the streets to protest.

It's difficult to predict how Obasanjo's "dummy", Umaru Musa Yar' Adua, will survive the opposition onslaught, or the fury of the military, who may want to influence matters in the only way they know how.

After a bold attempt to return the country to another civilian administration, Nigeria could be back to gun rule.

It makes you wonder whether there is something about African genes which reacts violently to the injection of freedom enzymes. Are we happiest in bondage?

Is the idea of a real Parliame-nt alien to the African psyche?

Tafadzwa Musekiwa might tell us a thing or two. He was an MP, but decided it wasn't worth dying for. He fled to the UK.

What prompted Makumbe to say what he said was that, under an all-powerful executive president, there was very little for Parliament to do, except to shout the occasional Aye! and Nyet!

The history of the Parliament of Zimbabwe since independence is one of Dzepfunde! After a few sentences, the Shona storyteller pauses for the listeners to acknowledge with Dzepfunde!

The former Zanu PF MP for Mhondoro, Mavis Chidzonga, delighted her audience of journalists and MPs with that characterisation of the then single-chamber Parliament at a 1998 meeting in Nyanga.

There have been patches of humour, drama and passion during these days of sycophancy.

After 2000, there were many expulsions from the House, giving us real fun for a change.

Before that, exchanges between white and black MPs during the 20 Reserved Seats period provided pure comic theatre.

Edgar Tekere and Margaret Dongo made their own magic with telling barbs at their former party.

Before the executive presidency removed the Prime Minister, Question Time provided memorable comic relief to the deadly dull business of the House.

As Prime Minister, Robert Mugabe was put through the wringer by Backbenchers, some of who delighted in embarrassing the often stern-faced Prime Minister with questions cooked up in such gobbledygook. Mugabe could only mumble something about referring them to his officials.

As an instrument for real democratic change, Parliament has been as effective as a willow in a windstorm. On a number of occasions, Mugabe has used the Presidential Powers Act to put into effect laws not debated in Parliament.

One effect was to settle the ownership of a house in a high-density suburb, another on the speed limit of buses.

These laws are effective only for a specified period, but their effect has often changed people's lives.

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All this has made Parliament mostly redundant. So, what purpose does an election serve? Stuffing a whole building with more than 250 or more people in stuffed shirts, designer suits and skirts and blouses and Gucci shoes, to engage in a never-ending charade of backslapping, is hardly the stuff of which good governance is made.

In Zimbabwe today, everything must start and end with a new constitution. Otherwise, abolish Parliament and give me back my tax money.

Or let the Chinese buy and operate ZINWA, Zesa and Zupco with the billions.