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Nigeria is bleeding, slowly in some regions, violently in others, and each day brings grim headlines of killings, kidnappings and assaults that mock state authority. In this climate, Hon. Ado Doguwa’s call for a temporary shutdown of the House of Representatives, and by extension the Senate, is not an emotional outburst but a necessary patriotic alarm.
A nation staggering under insecurity cannot pretend that democratic routines are functioning normally. Parliament is meant to mirror the pulse of the nation, yet lawmakers sit in comfort while citizens live in anguish. Children are abducted in clusters, villagers slaughtered in their sleep, and highways have become bandit hunting grounds. To continue legislative business as if all is well is both insensitive and democratically dishonest. A burning house cannot host a parliamentary session.
Armed groups roam freely, security forces are overstretched, and executive responses have been painfully inadequate. A temporary shutdown of parliamentary activities would signal that national survival outweighs governance rituals. It would tell the executive: Act decisively, or soon there may be no nation left to govern.
Doguwa’s call also exposes a deeper institutional failure. Parliament has drifted from being a watchdog of the people to a lapdog of the Presidency. Instead of demanding accountability for military strategy, intelligence lapses, and operational failures, many sessions echo with rehearsed endorsements and defections. A legislature meant to check excesses has grown timid; one that should bark now purrs, even as national security collapses.
The idea of a shutdown is, therefore, not only a response to insecurity but a protest against legislative submission and a plea for Parliament to rediscover its courage.
Abuja has insulated lawmakers from the suffering of their constituents. Sending them home forces confrontation with the insecurity suffocating their communities. No legislator who spends a week in today’s Nigeria will return unchanged.
Parliamentary sessions lose meaning when citizens die unprotected. No bill or budget outweighs human life. Sometimes dramatic action is needed to break through denial. A temporary shutdown could deliver the shock required to treat insecurity as the existential threat it is. Doguwa’s call defends national survival, and Nigeria should listen.
