Of Ogungbangbe, Legislative Experience and Senate Selection

By ISAAC OLUSESI

There have been a few flying instances of braggadocio and bragging, making excessively boastful claims to "legislative experience," as if it's the requirement the in-coming legislators must meet for Senate selection to qualify for the Senate candidature in the next general elections.

Such an aggrandized requirement is a ruse, transparently lacking substance. It is an artful stratagem but deceitful tactic to manipulate the upcoming freshman-lawmakers and tactically deprive them of Senate selection.

As a former legislative reporter of parliamentary news and developments, related to bills, hearings, and lawmakers' activities, I had the benefit of insights into the profiles of the National Assembly (NASS) legislators, their areas of expertise in business, academic and professions before they became lawmakers and experts in parliamentary procedures. 

And I can say, it's superlatively out of place for the impending freshman-legislators to be grounded in the comprehension of the processes of lawmaking, as a requirement to clutch Senate selection and become candidates for Senate.

By providence, Dr Thomas Olaleye Ogungbangbe, like most first-time legislators in NASS who initially did not have any legislative experience, would particularly, within a short span of time, grasp the understanding and experience of legislation and interpretation of laws, bills and regulations.

The proven fact is that Ogungbangbe, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of CITA ENERGIES would acquire legislative understanding, _ASAP,_ swiftly, and legislative experience in progression, via legislative manuals and guides, outlining legislative procedures; and across actual lawmaking rituals in the hallowed chamber of  NASS. The Senate in his case.

Other routes for him and co- first-time legislators, to pick legislative understanding and experience would be by way of consultation with lawyers, law professors, policy analysts, and multiple viewpoints, to stay up-dated, reviewing new laws, bills and regulations.

And generally, part of the best practices for first-time legislators is to ask questions and seek clarification on issues, through collaborations with support staff, colleagues, experts and stakeholders; do research and study specific laws, bills and regulations; and make visits to NASS websites, legal database and academic publications.

Trust, Ogungbangbe PhD, the Chairman of Association of Aviation Fuel Marketers Association of Nigeria (AFMAN) and Member, Inter-ministerial Committee on aviation, would ask effective questions to navigate the complexities of lawmaking, based on his cognate experiences in the banking, pharmacy and oil and gas in the private sector of the nation's economy.

And no manipulator should come around on the rostrum to wheedle or coax the Ife/Ijesa people into accepting "legislative experience," as a prerequisite for one to qualify in the next Osun All Progressive Congress (APC) Senate selection for Senate candidature.

But the Machiavellian, well known for his victimhood politics, is prone to manipulate the electoral publics of Osun East Senatorial District of the state, and has the Dr Thomas Olaleye Ogungbangbe, *for SENATE'27*  as target. But the manipulator is finding the target, a bone in the throat, too difficult to swallow, with postnasal drips, and is currently, on slippery slope.

Ogungbangbe, the scion of the Ajagbusi Ekun Owaloko Royal Dynasty of Iloko-Ijesa in Oriade local government council area of the state, is the APC chieftain from Osun East.

And with the party in the state, no problem. The party knows the cunning requisite of "legislative experience" is not in the nation's constitution, neither in the electoral law. And it's not even in the legislative order. It must be the coinage of manipulators or schemers.

Let our dear party stakeholders in 

Osun East also get the point and not hoodwinked into the emptiness of a manipulator's declaration: "I'm better, or am the best. My legislative experience of many years would, if given further years, revolutionize lawmaking in favour of you, your children and grandchildren in Ife/Ijesa." 

Don't cave in to that declaration. It's manipulation, puffery, and the manipulator's narcissism, his excessive love for himself above others. 

The declaration is bare and empty, the hint is "nasty, brutish, and short" in the thinking of Thomas Hobbes, an English philosopher.

 *OLUSESI writes via* isaacolusesi@gmail.com