Epia: MVP Hall of Fame Will Raise Performance Bar of N’Assembly Members

Interview

Oke Epia is the Founder of OrderPaper, Nigeria’s foremost independent parliamentary think-tank and policy multi-platform. He has over two decades of accomplishments in journalism, media relations, public policy and social entrepreneurship. In this interview with THISDAY, he speaks on the Most Valuable Parliamentarian (MVP) Hall of Fame initiative and why only a few distinct class of legislators will be unveiled and inducted for the 9th National Assembly, which will end soon. Excerpts:

OrderPaper’s MVP Hall of Fame event is around the corner; for the sake of those who have little or no insight into what this is all about, can you give us a brief history of it?

OrderPaper Nigeria would, on the 21st of May, in the Federal Capital Territory of Abuja, host a Night of Glamour to unveil, induct and celebrate a class of distinguished and excellence-driven members of the National Assembly who have been able to deliver very excellent services in the close to four years of the 9th National Assembly. So OrderPaper has, since the commencement of the Assembly in 2019, begun to monitor very closely the activities and the service delivery functions of the National Assembly, members of the Senate and Members of the House of Representatives. Specifically, around the functions of lawmaking, which is processed through bills. So we had begun to measure the performances of the 109 senators and the 360 members of the House of Representatives with regard to the sponsorship and processing of bills.

And so, for the first anniversary in 2020, the second anniversary in 2021 and, of course, the third anniversary in 2022. On every such occasion, we provided an appraisal of the National Assembly with respect to lawmaking. By the way, these are performance appraisals driven completely by what the data provides. In other words, they are completely data-driven. They’re not performance measurements on whims and caprices because we are a parliament-focused organisation.

The only thing we do is the Parliament of Nigeria; we drink, sleep, eat, and wake up with the Parliament of Nigeria in our thoughts and our minds. What we have done over time, therefore, is to put together a number of bills that have been proposed by the National Assembly. So in the first year, that was basically the approach. By the second year, we had to also keep aggregating that sponsorship of bills, but then we decided to advance it down the line beyond the numbers.

Do these bills advance the core mandate of the administration in power?

The President Muhammadu Buhari administration anchors its mandate on three core areas: the fight against corruption, revitalising the economy and addressing the ravaging insecurity across the country. Underpinning the propositions of legislation and the processes; in other words, the lawmaking functions of the 9th National Assembly. Has it aligned with the mandate of the Buhari administration? In looking beyond the number of bills, we decided to anchor the relevance, value and impact of these bills in that respect; so that because we have received feedback, especially from our working in the first and second anniversaries, that it’s not just the numbers. People can actually just sponsor bills, and nothing happens or sponsor bills just for the sake of having their names on bills. So we decided to extend the evaluation to cover Value and Impact.

Another critical area of evaluation or metric that we also decided on, out of experience and to make it a robust measurement and mechanism, was the extent of processing of these bills. So where have these bills gotten to in the bill processing stages of the legislature? You have at least six processes for a bill to become law, so the proposition of a bill at first reading when it is just mentioned qualifies anyone to be measured, but where have these bills been progressed to in the legislative mill?

Have they moved beyond the first reading? Have they been debated in plenary and scaled second reading? Have they been taken through plenary, committee processing, brought back to plenary and adopted for third reading and then passed by the House of Representatives or the Senate, as the case may be?

Has the bill advanced to the other chambers for concurrence? Has it been transmitted to the President for assent? Has it received assent if it has been transmitted, or was it returned? All of these are what we call the Productivity Index of the bills. Looking at these, we had therefore put together what we call the VVIP metrics of performance measurements with respect to lawmaking. In summary, the VVIP refers to the volume, value, impact and progression of these bills.

Looking at these bills through the metrics, we have been able to measure the performances of all the 469 members of the National Assembly with respect to lawmaking. In getting that measurement done, we decided that since this is where we are going, why don’t we put a measure in place to recognise and probably highlight best performances to encourage others and promote legislative strengthening? This explains why we designed the Most Valuable Parliamentarian Hall of Fame.

We are, for the first time in the history of this country, and I dare say across the continent of Africa, instituting a framework that will allow for only the best of the best members of the National Assembly in terms of excellence-driven performance, being public-spirited, deliver services, impacts on the lives and living conditions of Nigerians and also seek to improve the socio-economic indices of the country. We decided to design the Most Valuable Parliamentarian Hall of Fame (MVP), celebrate those lawmakers, and induct them into a Hall of Fame.

At midterm, we were able to have a nomination for a possible shortlist into the MVP Hall of Fame. So we had about 55 of the 469 members of the National Assembly across the Senate and the House of Representatives nominated for possible induction, the target being at the end of the Assembly in June 2023.

Using these combined metrics, we have a clearer picture of those pre-qualified for induction into the Hall of Fame, so we were able to shortlist from that 55 to slightly over 20 who were now shortlisted as semifinalists.

I think it was in April that we made the announcement of individuals across the National Assembly who have distinguished themselves to that extent for possible induction. Now, we continue to work with the data, analyse and continue to process the data and I must make the point that when we started to do this, we saw responses from members of the National Assembly- in the House of Representatives and Senate.

How does this induction differ from other awards regularly given by media and civil society organisations?

This is not an award. OrderPaper is careful in giving out awards since we started working in this space seven years ago. OrderPaper has carefully, deliberately refrained from having an award programme because of the pessimism, if not cynicism, that award programmes attract in the minds of discerning members of the public. People hold the perception that when you are giving an award, there is something you are looking for. It is even so bad that national awards that are given out by the Federal Government of Nigeria have suffered that kind of colouration. So we are being careful not to give out an award.

The MVP Hall of Fame, to put it in some clarity, is a Hall of Fame designed to harness best-confirmed performances in the legislature; that’s why we call it an invitation-only programme. You cannot come to it if you are not invited, and to come to it means your objective performance as a member of the National Assembly throughout your four years. And how you have delivered services is determined by the data available to the public, in the votes and proceedings and the order paper of parliament and available in the Hansard. In the committee reports that are aggregated and show how you have performed. It is not determined by the kind of connection that you have with the organisers, and it is not determined by any extraneous factors. So it is an invitation-only framework determined only by data. So it is just crafted to celebrate those who have done extremely well and have been outstanding in delivering legislative service to the country and their constituents. Therefore, it is not an award in that sense. So the MVP Hall of Fame stands out in a way and celebrates excellence in legislative service delivery.

In putting this event together, please tell us what the planning process for OrderPaper was like.

This is a carefully thought-through project. The MVP Hall of Fame has involved many months of working behind the scenes, research development, many months of crunching the data, and consulting with stakeholders and experts. Let me use this opportunity to state that, as of now, the final assessment and processes of choosing the inductees into the MVP Hall of Fame benefited tremendously from the inputs of a panel of experts that is external to OrderPaper. In other words, OrderPaper has done lots of the work, but we needed to be sure that we receive the benefits of experts in parliamentary think tanks, academia, civil society, the business community, and professionals who looked at the work done and offered their insights.

In fact, I could say that we submitted the work done to a final assessment of this MVP Panel of Experts who eventually came up with the final shortlist. So, that is to say to you that we have envisaged and put together a very robust error-proof process in place. The planning had been top-notch to make sure that in releasing the shortlist from where we will have the finalists that will be unveiled on the 21st of May. There is no room for controversy.

Objectivity has been maintained, enhanced, and, of course, put in the forefront. So the plans and the processes led us to where we are to the glory of God, and of course, to the very hard-working team at OrderPaper. It is important to also stress that we’ve not had any valid contestations to any of the appraisals we released throughout our Performance Appraisals through these years. We’ve not had any member of the National Assembly from all 469 members who have been impacted; not one of them has been able to validly fault our data because this is the work that is entirely driven by what the data says. Data is a stubborn thing. It cannot lie.

Now that momentum is building towards this event, do you mind telling us who will emerge as the finalists?

We want to keep the anticipation going. It is only a matter of days, if not hours. We can actually begin to do a countdown in terms of hours. May 21 is only a matter of days. For us, we are happy to note the excitement that the MVP Hall of Fame has caused in parliament – the National Assembly of Nigeria, among the general citizenry, across the civil society sector and even the business community. We are happy with the excitement and interest and even happy with the certain discomfort it is causing within certain quarters. Of course, not everyone is happy with it, as it has put some legislators in not so positive light in the eyes of their constituents. We have received feedback that some members of the National Assembly who didn’t make it, who were not successful, were impacted in their ratings by the Annual Appraisals that we had done in the last three years. So, of course, it’s a mixed feeling across the board, but the strategy for us is to sustain that anticipation and unveil the finalists on the day that we have chosen- the Night of Glamour.

Those who will be celebrated will be unveiled, those who will be inducted will be unveiled, and those who will be recognised will be unveiled, and after then, Nigerians will see we have the best of the best performers in the 9th National Assembly in the Senate and in the House of Representatives. But I can tell you that the number is very few, and as I have said, many are called, but few are chosen. The number has drastically gone down from the initial shortlist of the nomination of 55 persons, but I won’t say what the number is. Let’s just keep our fingers crossed in anticipation of the Night of Glamour.

What criteria did you use in coming up with these inductees?

The Value, Volume, Impact and Productivity (VVIP) metrics of measuring performance appraisals that we have put out in the last three years which has led to a cumulation of a shortlist of the MVP Hall of Fame. The VVIP  indices of measuring these performances are what we put together and submitted to the MVP Panel of Experts (MPEs) to look at. One interesting thing worth mentioning is that at this stage of consideration, the MPEs thought to introduce another dimension or what you may call criteria – the Value-Based Scorecard (VBS) to help promote exemplary conduct in parliament and the deepening of democratic processes in the country. This means that those that qualified in the semi-final stage are further subjected to a health check, a value-based check in terms of conduct in parliament and parliamentary practice, in terms of their conduct in leadership and democratic consolidation.

Are they individuals whose conduct in parliament are said to have raised adverse questions about democracy? Have they been involved in any scandal, conduct, or activity that brings opprobrium to the National Assembly? That brings opprobrium to themselves or the high office of the Senate of the Federal Republic of Nigeria or the high office of the House of Representatives? These value considerations were also brought to bear on those that will be selected into the Hall of Fame.

Are you not worried that this initiative will lead to the proliferation of bills as lawmakers in the 10th Assembly will want to make the list of the next induction?

We are not worried because we have implemented measures to check that possibility. Don’t forget I’ve told you in this conversation that we started with a focus on the number of bills and saw responses. The National Assembly responded by flooding the Senate and House of Representatives with bills, some of which have been stalled at first reading, second reading or stuck somewhere at committees. Introducing the other metrics on Value, Impact and Productivity in addition to Volume addresses that concern and the awareness is created that we are not looking at volume.

The ultimate for us is not the number of bills that you have sponsored but how well you have been able to work towards those bills becoming laws.

Our work is that the content of the bill you propose speaks to the governance objectives of the administration in office. How well do you seek to ensure that the bills you propose will positively impact the lives of the citizens across the country and not just your constituents? So these are the factors, and these are the metrics that we look out for. Yes, there is nothing wrong with proliferating bills. But the point has been made that the proliferation of bills is the least metric we use to measure performance at the National Assembly.

Do you see this initiative as that which will prop up the question of legislative accountability in the minds of Nigerians?

Indeed, that is a core objective of the MVP Hall of Fame. We have seen that the Nigerian parliament is struggling with the issue of citizen participation, as well as accountability and transparency in its processes and outputs. So, I’ve said to you that the MVP initiative aims to promote productive partnerships between the citizenry and civil society and the parliament of Nigeria. All of these are put in the mix as we spotlight and unveil a distinct class of excellent performers in the National Assembly.

The knowledge and expectations are that they are responsible for promoting the public cause. They have the responsibility to promote an Open Parliament.

They have a responsibility to engender transparency and accountability in the process of parliamentary practice and outputs. They have the responsibility to put the country before themselves and their constituency before themselves. So, there is no doubt that this class of MVPs, this class of inductees, from which some are returning to the National Assembly, and some are not. But there is no doubt that a benchmark has been set, and there is no doubt that there is a treasure base to look forward to by the 10th National Assembly in terms of delivery of service to the people of Nigeria.