What agenda as Kamoru Ogunlana steps in the saddle as CNA? By THE CONCLAVE Board of Editors

A leadership change has taken place in the topmost rung of the bureaucracy with Barrister Kamorudeen Ogunlana stepping in the saddle as the Clerk to the National Assembly (CNA). Ogunlana has seamlessly and effectively received the baton of leadership from the outgone CNA, Sani Magaji Tambuwal, under whose leadership the legal mind functioned as Deputy Clerk to the National Assembly (DCNA).

The atmospherics and the nuanced administrative processes that led to the consummation of Ogunlana’s elevation to the position of CNA were quite largely divergent in form and content from those that defined the processes and procedures that presaged the retirement of Tambuwal’s predecessor, Architect Amos Ojo. Unlike the mischief that escaped when Architect Ojo was to retire from the plum position, with all the storms and disagreements that characterised the process, the retirement of Tambuwal and the ascension of Ogunlana to the position of CNA were effectuated without any incident.

In this instance, the National Assembly Service Commission (NASC), under the headship of Engineer Ahmed Amshi, whose five-year tenure, expired on Friday, February 7, 2025, dictated the pace of the leadership recruitment and appointment exercise that threw up Ogunlana, for which it deserved and received kudos. But why the same leadership would go on from that glorious intersection to discount and undermine its own significance in the process of appointing a DCNA remains a curious turning point.

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The Board’s mischief in sidestepping the rule or policy of seniority by first appointing Ibrahim Atiku, PhD, as acting DCNA over and above no fewer than 10 other permanent secretaries, who got to that position before him, received the attention of the leadership of the National Assembly consequent upon a formal protest by Ibrahim Atiku’s senior colleagues. A grapevine said that they reported the administrative infraction to the Senate President, Godswill Akpabio, who liaised with the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Tajudeen Abbas, to cure the mischief that escaped from Amshi’s tainted and compromised “consideration and decision.”

The cure to the mischief was the emergence of Engineer Bashir Yero, who apparently enjoyed the confidence and support of the vast majority of his colleagues as demonstrated at a critical leadership meeting where Ibrahim Atiku’s appointment as acting DCNA was reviewed and a fresh decision made in favour of Yero. That will continue to stand out as one of the sore points of the five-year tenure of the board, which came to a terminus on Friday, February 7, 2025.

Let us return to the matter of topmost leadership change in the bureaucratic wing of the National Assembly as exemplified by the approbation of Ogunlana as the CNA. Whereas his appointment represents the crown capping of his luminous career in the National Assembly service and therefore he could rightly appropriate the self glory and thumb his chest in self congratulations, the real task of building good leadership legacies and etching the same in the minds of members of the internal publics of the National Assembly, to wit: the staff members, the legislators and the legislative aides, is what should engage his mind as he has assumed the driver’s seat.

Available pieces of information from the grapevine speak of the trajectories that Ogunlana has chosen to tread in the dispensation of his administrative functions. All eyes are on him. This is understandable. He is the chief accounting officer of the National Assembly. He is also the administrative honcho who will ensure that the wheel of bureaucracy runs seamlessly and efficiently.

Ogunlana has a historic opportunity to define his leadership with the magnitude of his offerings and/or priorities, which as learnt, include institutional reforms, staff members’ welfare, security of the National Assembly Complex, infrastructure/facility development/maintenance, and enhancement of public participation in National activities or engagements to improve the image of the institution and engender public trust. Consummating these agenda priorities will create an epochal era for which posterity will judge and remember him.

Since the vision of the new CNA encapsulates the priorities stated supra, he should become a missionary of sorts in the pursuit of these identified goals, whose fine details or specifics should crystalise or become writ large in the weeks and months ahead. Already, he (Ogunlana) has hit the ground running.

Remarkably, another grapevine volunteered a significant information about his expected leadership style. Read him: “his leadership aeon will be characterised by more of actions and less of verbiage. To be sure, Ogunlana is sedate but highly fecund and is ready to raise the bar of performance, especially in the aspect of staff welfare and teamwork to boost productivity in the workplace.” Ogunlana, himself, has validated this aspect of his corporeal element in his maiden speech shortly after the baton of leadership was formally handed to him as the ninth CNA since 1993, on Saturday, February 1, 2025.

Read him: “I intend to democratise decision-making. There is no way I will sit down here (and take decisions alone) because I do not know it all.” This aligns with the overarching philosophy of a team leader who is sharply focussed, drawing his zeitgeist from the staff members and top managers at the middle and upper rungs of the management ladder. Ogunlana took the opportunity of the occasion to validate his qualification for the job as well as his readiness to collaborate with the DCNA, permanent secretaries, directors and everybody in the critical value chain: “I have the legal and the legislative background, but I cannot claim to be an expert when it comes to financial issues, and that is where teamwork comes in.”

With his quiet mien, unassuming nature, and a disposition that is avuncular, the bureaucracy of the National Assembly is in a safe hand. Ogunlana is poised to bring about a renaissance in the running of the administrative wing of the federal legislature. He is, educationally, well prepared for the tasks that he would deal with from now up until June 22, 2027 when he will retire at the age of 60. Armed with a law degree from Ogun State University, Ago-Iwoye, he attended the Nigerian Law School in 1989/1990 and was called to the Nigerian bar in 1990. He is a member of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) and International bar Association (IBA)

On top of his educational qualification is his robust legislative experience. Ogunlana began his distinguished career with the National Assembly Service on October 4, 1993, as a Litigation Officer II in the Legal Services Department in 2001. After the inauguration of the 1st National Assembly of the 4th Republic on 8th June 1999, he was converted to a Legislative Officer and re-deployed in the House of Representatives as a Committee Clerk by the Management of the National Assembly. He was appointed to serve as the Deputy Clerk to the National Assembly on the 29th of March, 2023. But prior to his appointment as the Deputy Clerk to the National Assembly, Ogunlana had served in various capacities in the National Assembly Service: Director, Legislative Scrutiny and Research Department, House of Representatives (Feb 2017 – Aug 2020); Director, Committee Services Department, House of Representatives (Aug 2020 – Apr 2022); Secretary, Legal Services Directorate (Apr 2022 – March 2023).

In addition, he was for several years the Clerk to the House of Representatives Committees on Judiciary, Human Rights and Legal Matters, Justice, Federal Judiciary, and the National Assembly Joint Ad-hoc Committee on the Review of the Constitution. Ogunlana had undergone extensive trainings as a Legal Officer and a Legislative Officer both internationally and locally, establishing himself as a seasoned draftsman and Legislative Officer. He participated in the conception and drafting of several major Bills passed by the National Assembly from 1999 till date.

Remarkably, Ogunlana is the second lawyer to have become CNA, the first being Mohammed Sani Ataba Omolori. The advantage of this is that Ogunlana will be driven by the desire to ensure law and order as well as legislative due process. This desire finds anchorage in the profound philosophical offerings of Martin Luther King, Jr who was quoted to have once said: “Law and order exist for the purpose of establishing justice and when they fail in this purpose, they become the dangerously structured dams that block the flow of social progress.” We wish that Ogunlana will deploy his legal and legislative legerdemain to administer the affairs of the NASS bureaucracy within the circumscription of law and order as well as legislative and administrative due process. He would be home and dry at the end of his tenure in 2027 if he kept fidelity to this.

■ News Focus by Board of Editors of THE CONCLAVE online newspaper. We can be reached @ info@theconclaveng.com