Director General of National Institute of Legislative and Democratic Studies (NILDS), Professor Olanrewaju Suleiman on Wednesday frowned at the Executive arm’s blatant disregard for resolutions passed by the National Assembly on socio-economic and security as well as other issues that impact on lives and well-being of the citizenry.
Professor Suleiman who stated this in Abuja during a media chat at the end of the 3-day capacity building workshop for Legislative Aides, where he observed that Legislative Aides employed by 109 Senators and 360 members of the House of Representatives should not be treated as errand boys.
He said: “I tend to condemn the notion that tends to see democracy as just a monopoly of the Executive. We can do without an executive and administer a country but we can’t do without a Legislature if actually, we are practising democracy. Either you like them or hate them, it’s an institution that has come to stay and must be respected; it epitomizes democracy itself.
“So if anybody now out of sentiments, animosity, hatred wants to look down on that Institution or Organ of government, we can as well say let the military come back.
“I don’t want to subscribe to the notion that the Legislature is just a mere organ of that has the power to bark and does not have the power to bite. They must have the power to bite. It is only when they have the power to bite that is when their resolution, their position, law will be respected.
“Executive rascality which is more pronounced at the state level should not be encouraged. As a matter of fact, Nigeria must wake up to fight it. We must clamour against it, resist it. The panacea toward military intervention in Nigerian politics is by improving the quality of our legislature. And to do this therefore, whatever their resolution is must be respected,” the NILDS Director-General noted.
He maintained that: “Legislature itself as a body or an organ is the epitome of democracy; we can do without the Executive, we can do without the Judiciary; without legislature there is no democracy. We talk about the government of the people, you can elect Mr. President from just one political zone, it’s possible. He can get his entire votes from there, then, you can say the law says this but by the time you get to court they will say he has the majority he’s the President.
“But you cannot get the National Assembly or State Legislature from just one senatorial district or one geopolitical zone, what makes up the hallowed chamber is the representation of the entire state or interests in this country. So when we want to seek the people’s opinion, representation or interests articulated, taking care of, reflection manifested you can only see that in the legislature. And legislators cannot perform their work of lawmaking, representation and oversight without Legislative Aides, you are a pillar, you are the legs with which they walk, this notion that Legislative Aides are just errand boys, that notion must be jettisoned. Here you have a former member, who has come to impact experience on what his principal is doing; here you have some PhD holders, some Masters and some Barristers we need to change the notion and that is why it’s not always right when we have issues, or we have contestations or we have grievances with the leadership of the National Assembly or the CNA, it’s not always good to take recourse to violence, we must be seen to be respected people, honourable, distinguished in our own right. We believe as an Institute that we cannot get it right in this country until we do something on human capital development,” he stressed.
While addressing the Legislative Aides, Professor Suleiman unveiled plans to create a database for the trained Legislative Aides and publicize their details based on their respective competence at the beginning of the 10th Assembly, as part of ongoing reforms to deepen democratic practice in the country.
While applauding the leadership of the National Assembly for providing required resources for the human capacity building, he noted the Institute has so trained over 1,000 Legislative Aides adding that the training will be conducted on quarterly basis going forward.
“But in the last two years, we have discussed with the leadership of the National Assembly to increase the momentum; to change the dimensions; to change the scope and widen the number of recipients of the training.
“In the last nine months, we have been able to accomplish this task. By extension, our services permeated down to the local level, not the federal level alone. That is why in the last two years, our prominence, our feasibility is more felt at the sub-national parliament,” he stressed.
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