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Romanus Okoye
Senior Advocate of Nigeria, Chief Mike Ozekhome, has adjudged the outgoing Eighth National Assembly the best legislature the country has ever had.
The constitution lawyer said the assembly tried its best to be independent.
He said the Eighth National Assembly demonstrated sheer productivity and daring insistence on being truly independent of an overbearing and rampaging executive that did everything to annex it to its apron strings.
He said: “Right from the emergence of its principal officers, when it insisted it was its inalienable right to produce them, in accordance with section 50 of the 1999 Constitution (as amended) and outside the dictatorial, whimsical, capricious and arbitrary desire of any political party as if we were operating a parliamentary system of government, it has held sacrosanct, the hallowed doctrine of Separation of Powers, as ably propounded by great philosophers of yore and famously dilated upon in 1748 by the great French philisopher, Baron de Montesque.”
Ozekhome stated emphatically that in the entire legislative history of Nigeria, the Eighth National Assembly passed the greatest number of pro-masses motions, resolutions and bills into Acts of parliament than any legislature before it.
“It has also incubated and thrown up the most daring, courageous and brave Legislators that spoke truth to power and authority, at the perilous risk to their lives, families and properties.”
Ozekhome advised future legislators to take a cue from the outgoing assembly.
“Future National Assembly should and must take a cue from the Eighth National Assembly, that, it is an independent arm of government, specifically created by section 4 of the 1999 Constitution, (as amended), to make laws for the peace, order and good governance of Nigeria.
“Though expected to cooperate with the Executive, it must not do so at the expense of its own independence as an arm of government that participates in the inbuilt constitutional checks and balances.
“It is not a rubber stamp to executive desires and nuances. Any National Assembly worthy of its name, as the present one, must rise up and use its oversight powers under sections 88 and 89 of the 1999 Constitution (as amended), to check the excesses of the judicial and executive arms of government, especially of the usually intolerant, overhearing, dictatorial, arm-twisting and imperious executive arm that controls the coercive apparatchik of state power and forces.
