Nigeria's legislative activities from the first onto the second quarters of this year has been adjudged as ''unimpressive and very poor''.
This rating was handed down by a famous Nigerian Parliamentary monitoring group, ''Order Papper''.
This report is coming as a result of the inability of a total of 164 lawmakers made up of 15 Senators and 149 House of Representatives members to sponsor a single bill since the inauguration of the 10th Assembly on June 13, 2023.
In a statement made available to the press on Wednesday, September 4, 2024, by the Founder and Executive Director of OrderPaper, Oke Epia, the organisation said that the 10th Assembly for the past year witnessed poor progression and recycling of bills in both the green and red chambers of the parliaments.
In the statement, the organization said: "The period under review witnessed a surge but the slow pace of progression of sponsored bills, a significant number of which were proposals recycled from the preceding 9th Assembly.”
“A total of 15 Senators did not sponsor a bill while 149 members of the House, which is 12.6 per cent of the total membership, did not sponsor any bills in the period under review. Notably, 62 per cent of these representatives in the green chamber with no bills to their names, are first-time lawmakers”
The reports further revealed that over half of the bills sponsored in the Senate between June 2023 and May 2024, were recycled from previous Assemblies, especially the immediate past 9th Assembly.
“In a similar discovery, nearly one-third of the bills processed in the House of Representatives within the same period were resurrected from the past. This trend raises grave concerns about possible legislative ‘copy-pasting’ and further swirls speculations of merchandising of bills in the federal legislature.
“The analysis by Order Paper shows that from June 2023 to May 2024, the Senate introduced a staggering 475 bills out of which only 19 have been passed while 416 remain stuck awaiting second reading.
''Out of 1,175 bills introduced in the House of Representatives during the same period under review, only 58 have been passed into law while a majority of 967 are awaiting second reading''.
The reports also shows lack of focus on important and critical issues of national needs, pointing out that Bills related to agriculture and food security make up only 5.8 per cent of the total House bills and 7.3 per cent of Senate bills, while Security-related issues account for 7.2 per cent of House bills and 5.4 per cent of Senate bills respectively.
“Despite the significant challenges faced by citizens in these sectors in recent years, bills addressing these issues remain few, with many not even progressing past the first reading", the report said.
Epia said that the unavailability of bills for submissions by lawmakers and slow progress in processing is a real challenge that the parliament has been contending with.
“Citizens must demand accountability from lawmakers by focusing not just on quantity, but on the quality and impact of their work concerning bills processing in parliament.
“Order Paper calls for urgent action from legislators, citizens, as well as partners of the parliament to deploy these performance report cards to push for impactful legislative governance.
“We must move from the hollow boast of sheer volume which willy-nilly results in stalled bills towards impactful laws that address Nigeria’s pressing challenges",
"The gap between promise and progress must be closed if the 10th Assembly is to fulfill its potential,” the report added.
Speaking further into the approach of this year’s performance score report card, Programme Executive at Order Paper Nigeria, Joy Erurane, said the team undertook a thorough and indepth analysis of bills processed to cover key areas like education, security, health, economic development, and public finance.
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