By Peter B. Ogbobine Esq
I was compelled to write this essay after coming across a video interview on social media featuring a Senator from Edo State who had defected from the Labour Party to the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), only to be schemed out during the party’s recently concluded senatorial primaries.
The narrative accompanying the footage read, in part: “Till today, many cannot point to a single notable project or any empowerment initiative attached to his name across the senatorial district”
I will not dwell on the vitriol directed at him over his decision to defect to the APC, as I have addressed that subject more broadly in a previous article titled “Waka Waka Politics”. Rather, this essay concerns itself with the roles of National Assembly (NASS) members (legislators) and the expectations placed upon them regarding infrastructural development within their respective constituencies.
The Nigerian Constitution allows legislators to make laws, oversee the executive, confirm appointments (Senate only), and provide effective representation for their people.
Nowhere—not in Section 4, nor in the Fourth Schedule of the Constitution where the roles of legislators are adumbrated—are they constitutionally empowered to personally construct roads, sink boreholes, or commission transformers.
Yet, therein lies the problem: the gap between what the Constitution designed for the lawmakers to do and what Nigerian political culture demands.
The average constituent rarely reads bills sponsored by lawmakers. In fact, many citizens do not even know the difference between the responsibilities of a legislator, a governor, and a local government chairman.
To many Nigerians, every elected official is simply a “government person,” and every government person is expected to solve every problem, from filling potholes to payment of hospital fees.
Consequently, legislators are under enormous pressure to bring development home—not legislation, not policy reform, but physical development.
A legislator who builds classrooms in his community is celebrated. One who contributes meaningfully to constitutional reform is prone to hearing, “Oga Senator, wetin you don do for us?”
That single question captures the tragic comedy of Nigerian democracy. Thus, constitutional intentions become inverted: performance is measured not by legislative quality, but by visible tokenism.
The fundamental divergence between expectation and reality is this: the Constitution creates legislators; constituents want development contractors. This gap exists in many democracies, but in Nigeria it has reached almost theatrical proportions.
The primary culprit is the consistent failure of the executive—federal and state—to deliver basic infrastructure to the people.
When roads have potholes, hospitals are not functioning, taps are not running with water, constituents turn to whomever they elected to demand results.
Legislators are thus forced into a role the Constitution never assigned them, but which they have enthusiastically accepted, because a commissioning ceremony trends better than a committee hearing.
This irony—that legislators are constitutionally not supposed to directly execute projects, a responsibility that lies squarely with the executive branch working through Ministries, departments and agencies (MDAs) —gave rise to Constituency Intervention Funds (CIF) as a political compromise bridging constitutional theory and Nigerian reality.
The CIF reinforced constituents’ expectations without codifying them into law. Under the CIF, legislators nominate projects for their constituencies to be included in the national budget for execution.
Before working in public service, like most people, I believed that funds were given directly to legislators for infrastructure projects in their districts. However, I have come to know that is not the case—the funds are channeled through MDAs responsible for such projects.
So, the closest a legislator gets to infrastructure development is monitoring the execution of the project through the MDA.
Of course, not all legislators will have constituency funds in any given budget; allocation likely depends on ranking and influence of the legislator.
The wailing cry of the actor-turned-politician in the recent APC primaries in his Surulere constituency resonates loudly when he justified his quest for a fourth term in the Lagos House of Assembly so that he might become a ranking member capable of attracting infrastructure to his constituency—a true “never say die” actor.
However, the CIF is agathokakological: its advantages include directing resources to neglected rural areas and enabling rapid responses to local needs.
But disadvantages abound: poor transparency, substandard or phantom projects, and widespread corruption, as funds are frequently diverted for political patronage.
Yet a serious constitutional problem remains: legislators should not execute projects at all.
The doctrine of separation of powers requires the executive to implement, while the legislature oversees. When a legislator initiates, awards, and supervises a constituency project, he cannot meaningfully hold anyone accountable for its failure—because he is the failure. Oversight collapses.
Furthermore, when legislators are preoccupied with sourcing projects and managing contractors, the legislative calendar—their prime responsibility—suffers.
This constitutional violation has not gone unnoticed by even by the head of the legislature.
In a 2016 interview, former Senate President Senator, Ken Nnamani, stated unequivocally: “If lawmakers are involved in the execution of constituency projects, in my view, it is wrong. They are not supposed to do that. It is for the executive to do that. You cannot be competing with your governor in the state on building roads. That is not your role” (This Day newspapers 25/42016).
At this point, it is tempting to lay the blame entirely on the political class. But as Confucius reminds us, “He who blames others has a long way to go; he who blames himself is halfway there.”
The citizenry, too, must accept some responsibility. We have consistently rewarded visible symbolic gestures over legislative substance, celebrated ribbon-cutting over lawmaking, and demanded contractors rather than representatives. The fault does not lie with the stars alone.
To paraphrase Shakespeare from Julius Caesar: “The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves.” We have fashioned a political culture that incentivises the very constitutional inversion we now lament.
In conclusion, constituents must be better educated to understand their representatives’ role—a task easier said than achieved in a political environment where poverty makes transactional voting rational and civic education remains underfunded.
If the choice is between a legislator who delivers a bag of rice just before an election and one who promises better laws for the future, the hungry voter cannot be easily faulted for their preference.
Nevertheless, self-reflection remains the first step toward reform. Legislators must resist the temptation to conflate project delivery with representation. If the CIF is to continue, it must be governed by proper laws subject to public transparency.
In addition, the executive must be compelled—through rigorous legislative oversight—to actually deliver services. The legislator’s highest duty to his constituents is not a borehole; it is a functional state.
The Nigerian legislator is trapped in a cage. He knows the Constitution says he should be a legislator. But his people demand a contractor. He obliges, abandons his legislative duties, builds collapsing infrastructure, and wonders why the country is not progressing. The answer is simple: the man who should be writing laws is too busy pursuing contracts
Until Nigerian voters reward legislative performance—the quality of laws, the rigor of oversight—over the number of visible but useless projects, the NASS will remain what satire reveals it to be: a legislature in name only, staffed by contractors who sometimes remember to show up for work.
CIF projects will continue to fail due to mediocrity, and the constituents to vote, election after election, for the very people who ensure nothing truly works. That is not governance. That is a national ritual of self-deception, performed every four years with admirable consistency.
Legislators are thus torn between two visions: the Constitution’s dignified legislator and the constituency’s emergency contractor. Both are understandable. Only one is constitutional.
Ogbobine, a lawyer, lives in Abuja. He can be reached on:
pbbine@gmail.com
