How ex-govs senate ambition weakens legislature, threatens democracy – Reps

By Christiana Ekpa

The House of Representatives and National Institute for Legislative and Democratic Studies (NILDS) have blamed the high turnover of lawmakers in each election cycle on executive rascality of state governors, even as they disclosed that many State Governors’ Senate Ambition is weakening, distrusting legislature as well as threatens democracy.

Femi Gbajabimila, Speaker of the House and Abubakar Sulaiman, the Director General of Nigeria Institute of Legislative Studies (NILDS) stated this when they spoke at the 2022 week of the House of Representatives Press Corps with the theme: “High Turnover of the Lawmakers: Impact and Way Forward” in Abuja on Monday.

Gbajabimila, represented by the Peter Akpatason, the Deputy Majority Leader of the House of Representatives, said the high turnover of legislators was due to the inordinate desire of governors to maintain firm grip on political structures of their respective states.

He said the development was sad as it has negatively impacted the institution of the legislature which is the bastion of democracy but victim of any undemocratic governance as it goes extinct.

“When you talk about executive rascality, I don’t think a lot of people actually know, it is a very serious issue in this country. We have the situation in which governors want to do everything, want to take everything in this country but it not in the interest of Nigerian.

“It is not in the interest of democracy when a governor sits down and say XY must not come back, why? You are not looking at experience, competence, is not about inability to perform. The turn over of legislators is majorly due to the horde of the governors,’ he added.

“The legislature as the bastion of democracy can do their job very well only when you have a stock of competent and experienced human beings. A federal turnover is a serious problem, serious in the sense that, the older the better, the more experienced the better legislature.

“The best legislators are legislators who have seen it from every angle but you cannot come in and do one term and say you have seen. How much have you seen actually? How much would you know in National Assembly in four years?

“When there is military rule, you have the executives, you have the judiciary but the only one that is missing is always the legislature. So now that we are lucky to have democracy, the best that we can do to ensure that we have an efficient legislative arm is to maintain and sustain the experience already acquired by those who have been in service for quite some time.”

Also, Sulaiman, the NILDS Director General said most of the lawmakers that are not coming back to the Senate and the House in the next legislative session is on account of executive rascality which must stop.

He cautioned that the practice of removing lawmakers after four years or at most eight years was not healthy even for the constituents as only ranking members can become principal and presiding officers of the National Assembly.

“In National Assembly or legislature, we talk about ranking. If you are doing rotational, your constituency will never produce principal officers.”