10th Reps: Three years, 2,747 bills

From Ndubuisi Orji, Abuja

The House of Representatives recently threw open its doors to the public in the third annual Open Week of the 10th House, an occasion that offered the leadership a platform to account for its stewardship since the chamber’s inauguration on June 13, 2023, while also gathering feedback from constituents on its activities over the past three years.

More significantly, the event provided an opportunity for the House to build national consensus around critical bills pending before parliament as part of the ongoing effort to review the 1999 Constitution as amended. These include the state police bill, which seeks to alter the constitution to create a legal framework enabling states to establish their own police forces, and the special seats bill, intended to create dedicated seats for women in the National and State legislatures.

Setting the tone for the three day event, Speaker Abbas Tajudeen explained that the Open Week, now an annual ritual in the Green Chamber, was essentially designed to subject the House to scrutiny by the very members of the public it serves.

According to him, the initiative was conceived not as an exercise in self congratulation but as an act of accountability, since openness is not a courtesy the House extends at its pleasure but an obligation it owes to those it represents. In opening its doors, he said, the House affirms one enduring principle, that the making of the people’s laws remains their concern, and that they are entitled to observe it, interrogate it and help shape it, adding that no other arm of government submits itself to public examination in quite the same manner, and that the House does so with conviction rather than reluctance.

Abbas disclosed that a total of 2,747 bills were introduced in the House over the last three years, of which 363 were passed and 72 have already received presidential assent, a tally he described as the highest recorded by any assembly since the return of democratic governance in 1999.

Among the most impactful pieces of legislation, he listed the National Education Loan Fund Act, the acts establishing various development commissions, and a raft of tax reforms, alongside no fewer than 220 motions passed during the same period, many of them addressing the country’s pressing security challenges.

He noted that one of these laws now offers young Nigerians interest free student loans so that no student is turned away from a lecture hall for want of means, while another has reformed how the nation raises and shares its revenue, and others have established commissions to carry development into every region of the federation. Beyond these landmark statutes, he added, more than 800 citizens have petitioned the House, with hundreds of those matters already brought to resolution.

The Executive Director of the Policy and Legal Advocacy Centre, Clement Nwankwo, broadly agrees that the House has given a good account of itself since its inauguration, though he maintains that its work remains unfinished.

As the 10th National Assembly marks three years in office, he said, it is appropriate to reflect on both its achievements and the tasks still outstanding. He credited the Assembly with demonstrating commitment across several important areas, including the ongoing constitutional review process, efforts to modernise legislative procedures, consideration of key electoral and governance reforms, increased use of digital platforms, and greater engagement with citizens and civil society, while also showing resilience in responding to emerging national challenges and maintaining a broadly stable legislative environment.

At the same time, he argued, citizens rightly expect more from their legislature, including stronger and more independent oversight of the executive, more timely consideration of critical national issues, greater transparency in legislative business, broader public participation in law making, and reforms that directly improve governance, security, economic opportunity and social justice.

The Catholic Bishop Emeritus of the Abuja Diocese, John Cardinal Onaiyekan, who delivered a goodwill message at the Open Week, insisted that lawmakers must represent the people effectively and serve as a check on the executive, stressing that parliament cannot abandon its role in a democracy. The legislature, he said, is the heart of the three arms of a democratic government, alongside the executive and the judiciary, and if democracy is truly a government of the people, by the people, for the people, then the legislature represents that people and cannot abdicate its popular role, nor betray the sacred trust placed in it.

As Nwankwo suggested, observers believe citizens expect considerably more from the House as it enters its final session, particularly regarding the review of the 1999 Constitution. There is widespread expectation that the Green Chamber will pass the Special Seats Bill, intended to create dedicated seats for women in the National and State assemblies as a means of ensuring inclusive governance, alongside other constitutional alteration bills aimed at strengthening governance across the country.

Evidently conscious of these expectations, the House used the Open Week to further galvanise support for the Special Seats Bill and broader security reforms, while also forging new partnerships with the business community in pursuit of more robust, economy oriented legislation. At its interaction with business leaders, held under the auspices of the National Assembly and Business Executive Roundtable, the House proposed institutionalising the roundtable to ensure regular engagement with the business community and bridge the divide between legislative intervention and economic reality.

At a National Dialogue on the Special Seats Bill, the House unveiled an electoral college model for electing women to the proposed special seats, designed to make the process less cumbersome for both women and the country at large. The model is being presented as a novel initiative capable of ensuring the bill’s passage in the current assembly. Policy and governance expert John Mutu, providing an overview of the proposed model, explained that women would occupy these parliamentary seats through indirect election by office holders already elected at the local, state and federal levels within each special constituency. He acknowledged that the electoral college model is unfamiliar to Nigeria’s political tradition and carries clear implementation challenges, but argued that it nonetheless offers a practical vehicle for realising the strategic goals underpinning the Special Seats initiative.

The dialogue session on security similarly gave the Speaker an opportunity to allay lingering fears surrounding the establishment of state police. The House has been at the forefront of efforts to alter the 1999 Constitution to create a legal framework for decentralising policing, allowing interested states to establish their own forces as part of broader measures to tackle insecurity.

Concerns persist, however, that state police could be abused by state governors, alongside unresolved questions over funding. Abbas nonetheless maintained that the drafters of the State Police Bill had anticipated these likely challenges and built in adequate safeguards, noting that the country must learn from the experience of others, including Germany and Canada. He explained that the National Minimum Standards Act must be in place before any state police force issues its first directive, so that standards precede structures, and that implementation should proceed step by step, state by state, rather than switching on thirty six new forces simultaneously. He added that the question of funding must be settled from the outset, whether through a dedicated policing fund, shared services, or federal support tied firmly to standards, so that no state creates a police force it cannot pay for, and no unpaid officer becomes a threat to the very citizens he has sworn to protect.