Of Lawmakers and "Long-Throats"

In Nigeria, the term “long-throat” is employed when someone exhibits an irrepressible trait of avarice. The current blow-out of graft accusations aboard the country’s House of Representatives would suggest avarice there is not a mere trait; it’s a veritable disease, spreading virulently from the top down; more’s the shame ‘cos the top is occupied by a woman.

A lady of lowly Ikire beginnings, Mrs. Patricia Olubunmi Etteh was thrust into the public eye by that hard-churning engine of politics and fortuitously became the highest-placed female in public service as Speaker of what lawmakers themselves fondly refer to as the “Hallowed Chambers”. The profligate conduct of its occupants however relate a totally untoward tale, and since her instatement, the actions of Madame Speaker have only served to deepen the irony of such an appellation, from throwing a birthday bash in the States to taking gratuitous medical trips abroad. In a more recent turn of events I’d like to call the Renovation Rigmarole, Etteh and her deputy, Mr. Babangida Nguroje, were accused to have expended a whopping ₦628m ($ 5.0 million) to renovate their official residences (What’s that, a state’s budgetary allocation for the quarter?). These allegations came on the heels of yet another medical trip, which needless to say was cut short abruptly in the interest of political longevity, something she should’ve given more thought to earlier, considering that the whistleblowers were Assembly Reps who’d apparently been overlooked when juicy committee placements were shared out on resumption.

The up-shot of this falling-out is more revelations have been made to indicate these gluttonous activities were not perpetrated in isolation: Deputy Senate President, Ike Ekweremadu had also purportedly ‘upgraded’ his dwellings to the tune of ₦29m ($ 0.2 million). Speaking of the Upper House, the Senate President, rtd Major Gen. David Mark, is himself embroiled in electoral litigation. His opponent, a Mr. Usman Abubakar, who’s filed a court petition against Mark, insists he was the true winner at the ballot box and was robbed of victory by Mark who got in by the backdoor, supposedly aided by the electoral body INEC. While the bespectacled poster-child-for-alopecia Senator is keeping mum about the petition, he seems to be employing populist tactics to steer the contentious issue out of court. Last week Wednesday 150 women of his ethnicity from Idoma, Benue State (earth mothers all, God bless ‘em), rallied in a public street protest against the court petition, ferrying their grievances to the doorsteps of their village chieftains for them to initiate an ‘urgent intervention’. Meanwhile INEC repeatedly thwarts court directives to release the official vote count roster.

At the moment, Madam Speaker's engaged in a flurry of harum-scarum consultations with juggernauts of the Lower and Upper House for an emergency salvage from this slew of rip-roaring mud-slinging and possible impeachment. He he… Lawmaking politicking certainly just got greasier from all indications, and sadly, Patricia Etteh might just be the first head to roll. But this, as they say sometimes, is the land of cats with nine lives. That said, if she does go down, at least she won’t go down alone. Maybe she could become the “Deep Throat of Long-Throats”…