By Christiana Ekpa
The House of Representatives has lashed out at the former National Vice Chairman (North-West) of the All Progressives Congress, APC, Salihu Lukman on his recent criticism of the National Assembly.
In a statement by its deputy spokesperson, Philip Agbese, the House asked Lukman to refrain from what it called his needless criticism of the National Assembly, and instead, speak to issues of national importance.
The warning comes after a statement issued by Lukman on Tuesday, July 2, where he said that the 10th Assembly as a failure.
The statement read, “Partly because of the faint or almost complete absence of courageous voices in the National Assembly, the President and the members of the executive body of government are practically getting away with virtually every wrong decision that is injurious to the wellbeing of Nigerian citizens.
“A good example is the impulsive declaration of President Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu to end petroleum subsidy without any clear plan, followed by another impulsive decision to float the naira exchange rate against other international currencies with hardly any plan.
“How did we get to this abysmally low level of legislative practice whereby it can almost be said that in Nigeria, democracy equates to darkness? Without going into details, combinations of many factors, which have taken place over the last 25 years are responsible.
“Some of the factors include the reality whereby systematically, the leadership of both chambers of the National Assembly have been downgraded to the status of appointees of the President.
“That was largely made possible by the fact that the party machinery or organs, which are supposed to serve as the platforms for negotiations have been weakened and also subordinated to the President.”
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