By Paul Effiong, Abuja
National Assembly’s parliamentary monitoring Group and public policy think-tank known as Order Paper has concluded arrangements to make public, the 10th NASS performance index report.
Executive Director of the association, Oke Opia, in a press statement made available to journalists yesterday in Abuja said the 10th National Assembly’s score card is marked by slow progression, as well as the recycling of some sponsored bills, emphasising that those features were from the ninth Assembly.
The group maintained that the performance report card revealed that there were significant gaps between sponsorship and progression of legislative drafts.
Legislative data provided by the group revealed that over half of the bills sponsored in the Senate between June 2023 and May 2024 were recycled from previous assemblies, disclosing that the ninth Assembly had most of the recycled Bill’s.
It also discovered that nearly one-third of the bills processed in the House of Representatives within the same period were resurrected from the previous Assembly, while lamenting that such duplication raises grave concerns about possible legislative ‘copy-pasting’ and further swirls speculations of merchandising of bills in the two chambers.
The analysis showed that from June 2023 to May 2024, the Senate introduced 475 bills out of which only 19 had been passed, while 416 remain stuck awaiting second reading.
In like manner, out of 1,175 bills introduced in the House of Representatives in the same period under review, only 58 have been passed, while a vast majority of 967 are awaiting second reading.
Several data sets produced by the organisation revealed that 15 senators did not sponsor a bill, while 149 members of the House, which is 12.6 percent of the total membership, did not sponsor any bill in the period under review. Notably, 62 percent of these representatives in the green chamber with no bills to their names are first-time lawmakers.
The performance report also highlights a troubling lack of focus on critical issues of national importance. Bills related to agriculture and food security make up only 5.8 percent of the total House bills and 7.3 percent of Senate bills. Security-related bills account for 7.2 percent of House bills and 5.4 percent of Senate bills.
Despite the significant challenges faced by citizens in these sectors in recent years, bills addressing these them remain few, with many not even progressing past the first reading.
Opia explained that the annual performance reports of the National Assembly over the years have led to an increase in the number of bills sponsored by lawmakers, urging citizens to always look beyond volume and focus more on progression, value and impact.
“Citizens must demand accountability from lawmakers by focusing not just on quantity, but on the quality and impact of their work with respect to bills processing in parliament,” he said, adding that “The 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 fulfil its potentials.”
Giving further insight into the approach and focus of this year’s performance report card, Joy Erurane, programme executive (creativity and innovation) of the association, said the team undertook in-depth sectoral analysis of bills processed to cover key areas like education, health, economic development, security and public finance.
“This approach enables stakeholders in these sectors to navigate legislative impacts better and aid decision-making.
“The data, which were sourced from the records of the National Assembly and put through several integrity tests, highlights the imbalance in sectoral coverage of bills and the troubling trend of bill sponsorship without follow-through.
“While resurrecting bills from previous assemblies is not inherently bad, it points to a need for genuine legislative commitment to avoid what has been termed as legislative plagiarism in literature. It also raises questions about the accuracy of legislative representation and the involvement of citizens in critical decision-making.”
