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Today, June 9 2016, marks exactly one year since Bauchi born Barrister Yakubu Dogara emerged as Speaker of the House of Representatives in an unprecedented, keenly contested election in the political history of Nigeria since 1960.
The score card below is culled from the statement written by Turaki Adamu Hassan, the Special Adviser on Media and Publicity to the Speaker of the House of Representatives.
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In his acceptance speech on that day, Dogara made a solemn declaration asserting that the House under his leadership “shall wage an unrelenting legislative war on Nigeria’s problems”.
He told his colleagues that it was now their responsibility to fashion out the legislative instruments that will lead to Nigeria’s renaissance, adding, “Let the word go forth from here that it shall not be legislative business as usual again in Nigeria.”
Since then, the Speaker has kept to his words and moved on with the Consolidation Agenda by embarking on a series of innovations in the conduct of legislative activities of the Green chamber.
Today, the House of the Nigerian people is not only busy discharging its constitutional responsibilities to the people, but is doing so with the utmost zeal and patriotism.
By law, the parliament discharges its duties and responsibilities through bills and resolutions which are the major yardsticks of assessing the performance of the legislature.
The 8th House has set many firsts, with an unprecedented record of passage of legislations that have begun to change the pace of things in the country.
Instructively, Dogara unveiled his legislative agenda even before he was elected; the first of its kind, and tabled same to his colleagues immediately after their inauguration; subjected it to debate before adoption by the whole House.
Thereafter, the speaker, with a speed of light embarked on review of obsolete and outdated laws by setting up a committee of experts which is still working but nevertheless has turned in about 200 bills, while hundreds more in the offing.
The panel which comprises of legal luminaries is working for months and have recommended scores of bills for consideration with the aim of cleaning Nigeria’s statute books adopted from Britain under the Statutes of General Application in force in England as at 1st January, 1900.
One major startling revelation from the panel is that Nigeria is still using some laws that are over 100 years old which were adopted from England whereas Britain has either repealed, amended and or updated them more than 50 years ago.
The committee has so far submitted three reports to the Speaker with the last being on Thursday 2nd June, 2016 where 53 additional bills were recommended for legislation.
Before then, specifically in December, the House set record by passing for first reading, 130 bills and on May 26 2016, 19 bills were considered and passed under the watchful eyes of the Speaker who sat from 11am to 5pm on floor. The same thing happened on June 1, on June 2nd, 25 more legislations were passed and in all, the speaker sat while the bills were considered and passed, and this will continue until all pending bills are passed.
Consolidating on the spectacular performance of the 7th Assembly, which was rated high in terms of bills passage, where 700 bills were presented in four years, the 8th House under the youthful Barrister Dogara, in just one session, over 600 bills of high quality were presented for consideration, most of which were from the recommendation of the Statutes Reform committee constituted by the Speaker.
Now, almost 80 of those bills, representing about 18 percent of all bills presented have been effectively passed by the House as at the time of penning this article thereby setting another record in itself.
On motions and resolutions, as at the last sitting in May, the House had considered almost 600 motions. Indeed, there can be no better way to perform than this. This is even so when the intent of the bills and motion are in tandem with the yearnings of the Nigerian people for a better life.
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The score card below is culled from the statement written by Turaki Adamu Hassan, the Special Adviser on Media and Publicity to the Speaker of the House of Representatives.
------
In his acceptance speech on that day, Dogara made a solemn declaration asserting that the House under his leadership “shall wage an unrelenting legislative war on Nigeria’s problems”.
He told his colleagues that it was now their responsibility to fashion out the legislative instruments that will lead to Nigeria’s renaissance, adding, “Let the word go forth from here that it shall not be legislative business as usual again in Nigeria.”
Since then, the Speaker has kept to his words and moved on with the Consolidation Agenda by embarking on a series of innovations in the conduct of legislative activities of the Green chamber.
Today, the House of the Nigerian people is not only busy discharging its constitutional responsibilities to the people, but is doing so with the utmost zeal and patriotism.
By law, the parliament discharges its duties and responsibilities through bills and resolutions which are the major yardsticks of assessing the performance of the legislature.
The 8th House has set many firsts, with an unprecedented record of passage of legislations that have begun to change the pace of things in the country.
Instructively, Dogara unveiled his legislative agenda even before he was elected; the first of its kind, and tabled same to his colleagues immediately after their inauguration; subjected it to debate before adoption by the whole House.
Thereafter, the speaker, with a speed of light embarked on review of obsolete and outdated laws by setting up a committee of experts which is still working but nevertheless has turned in about 200 bills, while hundreds more in the offing.
The panel which comprises of legal luminaries is working for months and have recommended scores of bills for consideration with the aim of cleaning Nigeria’s statute books adopted from Britain under the Statutes of General Application in force in England as at 1st January, 1900.
One major startling revelation from the panel is that Nigeria is still using some laws that are over 100 years old which were adopted from England whereas Britain has either repealed, amended and or updated them more than 50 years ago.
The committee has so far submitted three reports to the Speaker with the last being on Thursday 2nd June, 2016 where 53 additional bills were recommended for legislation.
Before then, specifically in December, the House set record by passing for first reading, 130 bills and on May 26 2016, 19 bills were considered and passed under the watchful eyes of the Speaker who sat from 11am to 5pm on floor. The same thing happened on June 1, on June 2nd, 25 more legislations were passed and in all, the speaker sat while the bills were considered and passed, and this will continue until all pending bills are passed.
Consolidating on the spectacular performance of the 7th Assembly, which was rated high in terms of bills passage, where 700 bills were presented in four years, the 8th House under the youthful Barrister Dogara, in just one session, over 600 bills of high quality were presented for consideration, most of which were from the recommendation of the Statutes Reform committee constituted by the Speaker.
Now, almost 80 of those bills, representing about 18 percent of all bills presented have been effectively passed by the House as at the time of penning this article thereby setting another record in itself.
On motions and resolutions, as at the last sitting in May, the House had considered almost 600 motions. Indeed, there can be no better way to perform than this. This is even so when the intent of the bills and motion are in tandem with the yearnings of the Nigerian people for a better life.
----
Click here to read more
