Many Nigerians regard the ongoing probes and public hearings as circus shows designed to provide diversions to disconsolate citizens and make them forget their sorrows at least for a season. Those who seek equity, a school of thought argues, must come with clean hands. Many members of the National Assembly did not win a free and fair election and no Nigerian today - except the federal legislators themselves - can say with certitude the total monthly emoluments of the lawmakers. It is even rumoured that a Nigerian senator or representative earns as much as N8million per month, when all allowances/estacodes - travel, furniture, wardrobe, inconvenience, car, house, refreshments, out-of-pocket expenses, etc - are factored in. These skeptics or cynics therefore wonder why Nigerians should expect the lawmakers to pass the Freedom of Information Bill with felicity and alacrity. No guild, they contend, forges her own chains. They equally posit that the executive understands these charades and has therefore taken no more than a passing interest in the whole publicity stunt; in fact, spartan interest because the glitz and melodrama provide somewhat fortuitously the explanation for her alleged slowness - the need to look carefully before taking any leap.

On the other side of the divide is another school of thought that believes that the federal legislators are motivated by national interest. That things were not done right in the past does not mean they can't be right now. These Nigerians say the current National Assembly is on course to stamp out corruption from national life. The probes will be pursued to logical ends; those indicted will be made to face the music. The National Assembly is so passionate about the probes that any attempt to sweep the recommendations under the carpet by the executive shall be met with stiff resistance - impeachment, if it comes to that! Those found culpable - for instance in the $10bn sunk into power sector (1999- 2007) that produced darkness in place of light and about N1trillion expended on road construction over the same period that only increased death traps on the roads - will willy nilly go to jail!

However, the interest of this writer is on the capacity - some may say competence - of those committees saddled with the onerous responsibility of probes. For instance, when then-Governor Liyel Imoke of Cross-River State - a former minister under whose watch substantial sums were expended in the power sector - appeared on Monday 17th March, 2008, before the House power sector probe, he spoke far and high above the knowledge of the committee members. But for the augean stable that had earlier been revealed at the probe when, for example, some contractors got millions of dollar without even knowing the sites of the power projects they were to execute, Imoke would have been accorded a standing ovation by the panel. The energy sector is a technical area - a clearly unknown country to the lawmakers; and the former minister took advantage of his expertise. The legislator from Bayelsa State who seemed to be technical-minded however lost himself in a verbiage and his question was overtaken by murmurings from the audience. One should have expected that a committee on power and steel should be composed of engineers and technologists.

Again, when the stormy petrel, Mallam Nasir el-Rufai, appeared at the Senate Probe on the Federal Capital Territory, not a few Nigerians believed he would leave the public hearing with blushes when considered against the background of lawlessness, arrogance, cronyism and cupidity that characterized his administration of Abuja. But it was clear el-Rufai had little or no regard for the competence/capacity of the panel. When he was questioned on the eviction of Justice Sambo, former chairman of the Code of Conduct Tribunal, against a valid court order, the former minister took recourse to a humbug: how his father was the friend of Justice Sambo's stepmother and how his friend was the elder brother of Sambo's grandson and all such distractions. But he got away with it. It took the competence and maturity of Senator Henshaw to bring him down - albeit temporarily - from his high horse. You claim your conduct as minister was guided by the guidelines/ rules approved by the Federal Executive Council. But when you bought a government house at a ridiculous price, it was outside the rules? Again, el- Rufai attempted a circumlocution but was cut short by the senator. "Yes, the rules sometimes run out..."! Of course, the rules would run out when the interest of El-Rufai and his ilk is involved.

Had the committee been blessed with more professionals, el-Rufai would have left the public sitting with his head bowed. When has ignorance become an excuse in law? Do you commit murder and later establish an alibi that your lawyer elder brother did not tell you the import of extra-judicial killing? When Senator Okechukwu Obioha pinned down el-Rufai with a quotation from our extant law that you need a court warrant to conduct an eviction, the minister claimed ignorance but he had not done. Bayo Ojo, the then Attorney-General was at the Federal Executive Council when the guidelines were approved and he did not draw our attention to the law. That was a defining moment in the probe when el-Rufai should have been dismounted from his Olympian height but did the panel seize the moment by the forelock? Mallam el-Rufai claimed he did not disobey any court order "personally served on me." And the panel allowed him to get away with such brazen lie. Was the press not awash in 2006 with el-Rufai's rebuff of court summons that were issued three times? The fourth time, it was a bench warrant for his arrest but the bailiff became the butt of officers at the police headquarters as they wondered why anyone would want them to undertake the unthinkable act of arresting the almighty Nasir el-Rufai!

Again, the former minister was being cruelly facetious - a reflection of a streak of sadism - when he responded that he did not know of anyone that died as a result of his illegal demolitions since he had no such doctor's report. But no committee member countered him on that. Will el-Rufai in his adult life claim not to know people who lost all they had due to natural or man-made incidents and thereafter died after an obvious spell of depression without a doctor's report?

Finally, I find the cavalier attitude of the chairman of Senate Committee on FCT very funny. All said and done, we have seen the imperative of political education, political participation and the need to elect our very best to the National Assembly.