National Assembly saved Nigeria from collapse- Dogara

In order to attain stable, strong and effective governance in Nigeria,
the National Assembly must receive priority attention in terms of
capacity building, Speaker of the House of Representatives, Hon Yakubu
Dogara, has said.

He made this known while delivering an address on the topic,
“Parliamentary Institution Building in Africa”, at the convocation
ceremony of the National Institute for Legislative and Democratic
Studies (NILDS)/University of Benin Post Graduate Programmes for the
2015/2016 and 2016/2017 Academic sessions, which held at the National
Assembly.

The speaker explained that because the legislature is the true face of
democracy, especially in maturing democracies such as that of Nigeria,
where it serves as the stabilising force with robust constitutional
powers to check-mate the executive misuse and abuse of power which
occasionally rears its head.

Making a case for strengthening institutions to produce good
governance, Hon. Dogara added that the imperative of building healthy
and strong institutions, like the legislature, in place of strong
personalities, has been the bane of our democratic experience in
Nigeria.

Going further, he stated: “Time has come to reverse this trend in
order to achieve the goals of a robust and sustainable economic,
social and political development, not only in Nigeria but in Africa as
a whole.

“It is our considered opinion that if there is any institution of
government that should receive priority attention in terms of capacity
building, it is the legislature. This is because the Legislature is
the true face of democracy. In our maturing democracy in this country,
the Legislature is the stabilising force as it has robust
constitutional powers to check-mate the Executive misuse and abuse of
power which occasionally rears its head. Credit must be given to the
Nigerian parliament, which has continued to make laws, perform its
representative functions and make robust use of the power of oversight
in order to preserve our hard-won democracy and achieve good
governance.”

Elucidating further on the topic, he said a key factor in moving from
a nominal democracy to democracy that delivers development results for
people is an effective legislature that holds the executive to
account, especially in developing countries burdened by weak
governance structures like Nigeria and lamented that whereas much work
has been done on strengthening executive leadership, not much
attention has been paid to systematically building the capacity of the
legislature to effectively contribute to national development.

Leave a Reply