National Assembly not for school drop-outs ― Hon. Monguno

The Majority Chief Whip of the House of Representatives, Hon Mohammed Monguno on Monday showered encomium on Media practitioners covering the activities of the National Assembly toward educating Nigerians on the role of the Legislature in nation building.

Hon. Monguno gave the commendation in Abuja, during an interactive session with members of the House of Representatives Press Corps.

While noting that the National Assembly was not for school drop-outs as misconceived by some Nigerians in the past, Hon. Monguno disclosed that the Legislature has attained a level where professionals and those who have attained the peak of their careers are attracted into the system.

According to him, “for now there’s a level of appreciation as a result of constant engagement between the Legislature and Nigerians through the media.

“Even looking at the quality of representation, there is significant and tremendous improvement in the quality of representation in the National Assembly. Before the National Assembly is viewed with very low esteem by Nigerians. That it’s only school drop-outs that will be coming to the National Assembly or people that were looking for jobs that could not get jobs, you know that our coming to the National Assembly but nowadays you see lawyers, accountants, medical doctors, engineers, people that have reached the pinnacle of their careers, Generals, professors and what have you.

“Once again we sincerely appreciate the roles that you are playing about educating Nigerians on the roles of the National Assembly especially those of you that are in the National Assembly Press Corps who know the nitty-gritty of the workings of this place much more than journalists that are outside

“You are the ones that are always trying to project what is happening in the National Assembly to the general public, to the extent that the general public has started to gradually begin to appreciate the roles of the Legislature in nation-building,” he noted.

Hon. Monguno who expressed displeasure over the misgivings about the roles of the Legislature in nation-building argued that long incursion of the military contributes to the low appreciation of the Legislative arm of government.

He also frowned at the situation where Nigerians across the country demand for money from their representatives in the National Assembly.

ALSO READ: Insecurity: We ‘ll give special budgetary attention to Zamfara ― Gbajabiamila

“You are the ones that report our activities in the National Assembly. Because one of the major problems we have in the National Assembly is the inability of Nigerians to appreciate what we do and you’re the ones that are always on your toes to try to inform Nigerians about what we do here and that brought about some level of appreciation of what we do.

“It’s because of your handiwork if not, the institution of National Assembly would have been given a very negative name by Nigerians maybe because of our closeness to the people that’s why we are always on the public view being x-rayed; in all our activities whether personal or official everything is being x-rayed.

“This is purely as a result that we are more closer to the people and therefore we should be subjected to a higher standard than the people that are not representatives of the people and not closer to the people. So I’m not surprised that we are always in the public domain and public view with regards to our activities.

“Also because of the long years of the military incursion into our body polity, the legislature has been completely wiped out by the Executive and the Judiciary.

“So as a result of that, over the years, the Executive and the Judiciary were able to build up some institutional capacity, compared to the Legislature that is always the casualty whenever there is military intervention.

“And therefore, that has deprived the Legislature of the necessary institutional capacity to withstand all the shocks and what have you that is in the polity. I think this is one of the reasons that brought about the less appreciation of the Legislature in the Nigerian democratic context.

“Even our constituents do not appreciate our roles. They don’t know that we are actually here for law-making. If you look at the text messages that we are bombarded with, somebody is having marriage, marrying out his daughter, somebody who wants to pay school fees, somebody could not put food on his table that day will have to report to you so that he could put something on the table for the day; as far as somebody whose soak-away gets broken down will call you that my soak-away has broken down.

“That is the level of lack of appreciation of the role of the legislature in our democracy, so we will continue to battle with it until such a time our democratic experience attains a cruising altitude before people come to appreciate the role of the Legislature,” the Chief Whip noted.