By Musa Baba Adamu
The President of the Senate, Ahmad Lawan has given an account of how the Ninth National Assembly outperformed its predecessors.
In a keynote address to formally declare open an induction programme for the members-elect of the incoming 10th National Assembly, Lawan said the Ninth Assembly had performed “exceedingly well” in terms of the number and quality of the bills introduced, passed and assented to.
“As of July 2022, a total of 874 Bills were introduced in the Senate, out of which 162 were passed,” Lawan told members-elect of the 10th Assembly gathered in Abuja on Monday for the induction programme ahead of their inauguration in June.
“Remarkably, 104 Bills of the Ninth Senate have been assented to by President Muhammadu Buhari, making this significantly higher than those of previous Assemblies, which recorded 31 for the Fourth Assembly, 98 for the Fifth Assembly, 52 for the Sixth Assembly, 60 for the Seventh Assembly and 74 for the Eighth Assembly.
“And that tells you when the two arms of government come together, working together, partnering and synergiszing to ensure that services are provided for the citizens, government delivers services better, more efficiently and more effectively,” he said.
Lawan stated further that at the onset in 2019, the Ninth Senate was mindful of the damaging effect of persistent conflict with the Executive and the resultant impact on legislative activities.
He said they were equally aware that a good working relationship is desirable and indeed imperative to achieve effective and efficient service delivery to the people.
“Hence under my leadership, the Ninth National Assembly adopted a friendly but professional approach to Executive-Legislstive relations focused on harmonious working relationship based on mutual respect, consultation, cooperation, collaboration and partnership,” Lawan said.
The Senate President listed some of the landmark achievements of the Ninth Assembly and further justified why they opted for an harmonious work relationship with the executive arm of government.
These include Deep offshore and Inland Basin Production Sharing Contract (Amendment) Act, 2019, Petroleum Industry Act, 2021, Company and Allied Matters Act, 2020, Finance Act, 2020, and a host of others.
“When we came in 2019, our experience in the Eighth Assembly and even before the Eighth Assembly was not that kind of experience that we would like to continue especially in the area of budget processing and passage.
“In the past, budget could be passed in the National Assembly maybe in May of the following year. So almost half of the year is gone without a budget being implemented.
