That Reps’ Spending Spree

The apparent outsized appetite of members of the 8th National Assembly for wealth, flamboyance, opulence and the best things money can buy, appears to be crossing the nation’s economic red line. And if not checked, it may spell doom for the country.
Or how else can ordinary Nigerians explain recent media reports that in the midst of the harrowing experiences of striving to stay alive in a severely depressed economy, the House of Representatives is spending N6.1 billion on 360 luxury Peugeot 508 cars for its members.
According to reports, the unit price of the brand new cars is N17 million and 200 of them have already been delivered.
Spokesman of the House of Representatives, Abdulazeez Namdes, was quoted as saying that all the members would take possession of the vehicles before the year runs to an end, pointing out that the procurement of the cars was accommodated in the 2017 Federal Budget.
While The Tide does not want to challenge the right of the legislators to whatever perquisites of office that are constitutionally due them, we think that our representatives do not operate or live in outer space. They live among the people they represent and should feel their pulse and pains.
At a time of pervasive low capacity utilisation, high cost of production and attendant job losses, runaway inflation, non-payment of salaries and pensions by both the federal and state governments, we expect our legislators to show sympathy and shun the mundane and profane.
As if to rub salt into our wounds, the Reps spokesman justified their disgusting acquisition by saying that Nigerians would not want their legislators to descend low, but would rather want them to be deserving of their status. What could have been farther from the truth?
The excuse by the Reps spokesman is not only self-serving, untenable and unacceptable, but also provocative, given the fact that senior citizens that had served Nigeria diligently with the most productive years of their lives are languishing in penury while awaiting pensions and gratuity  they are not even sure of receiving.
The legislators may need to ask themselves: how many directors in the federal and State civil service own official cars and residences, let alone exotic ones?
We recall that in the recent past, the upper chamber of the National Assembly, the Senate, had embarked on a similar spending spree on exotic cars worth billions of Naira without regard to its impact on the economy and the ordinary Nigerian.
The implications of this unpatriotic and insensitive actions of our federal lawmakers are far-reaching, as they are capable of making contest for public office a do-or-die affair.
Sadly, even as our legislators are always on time to satiate their needs or greed, they have often disappointed the electorate when it comes to serving their interest in the National Assembly.
For instance, the recent shutting down of the bill on devolution of powers to the States, which could have deepened democracy and triggered real development, gave the lawmakers away as insensitive and self-centred.
We wonder why it is always difficult for the lawmakers to treat anything that will benefit Nigerians with great concern and empathy, or legislate on things that will save Nigeria from becoming a failed state.
The Tide hopes that our National Assembly members will read the signs of the times, rededicate themselves to the service of Nigerians on whose toil and sweat they enjoy their opulence and flamboyance and, by so doing, prove their critics wrong.
The Indonesian experience where the country’s lawmakers were publicly assaulted due to their anti-people laws and policies is a lesson we would not wish to be replicated in Nigeria.
Our lawmakers should be servants, not masters.