Reps: A people’s house or self-seeking assembly?

From Ndubuisi Orji, Abuja

What hope does the House of Representatives offer for good governance in the country? While the Green Chamber dubs itself “People’s House”, critics describe the parliament as a rubber stamp assembly, which is beholden to the executive arm of government. But does the lower chamber of the National Assembly offer hope for good governance? That is the critical question, as citizens take stock after 65 years of independence.

The 10th House at inception in 2023 had enunciated a 8-point legislative agenda to guide its activities in the next four years. The legislative agenda which include: strengthening good governance, improving national security, law reforms, economic growth and development, social sector reform and development, inclusion and open parliament, influencing and directing foreign policy and climate change and environmental sustainability, was expected to guide legislation on the lifespan of the assembly.

The speaker, Tajudeen Abbas, believes the House has done so well in pursuit of its legislative agenda. Abbas, while speaking at the Open Week organised by the Green Chamber in July said 2,263 bills were introduced by the House within its first two years. He explained that a total of 237 bills have been passed and sent to the President for his assent.

According to him, “in our first two sessions, this House introduced 2,263 bills. Among these, 1,478 have gone through Second Reading, 135 are awaiting further consideration, and 339 have been referred to Standing Committees. Five bills were negatived, reflecting rigorous legislative debate. Member-sponsored bills accounted for 2,204 of the total, with 26 Executive bills and 33 emanating from the Senate for concurrence.

“ These figures indicate a steady upward trend since 1999, highlighting an ever-growing legislative capacity and competence. As of 30 June 2025, the House has passed 237 bills and forwarded them for presidential assent, of which 55 have been signed into law.”

Former Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) presidential aspirant, Mazi Sam Ohuabunwa, told Daily Sun that while the entire National Assembly has not done very well, the House, comparatively has done better than the Senate ,saying that the people expect more actions from them. 

He said “Overall, my thinking is that this 10tn Assembly overall has not lived up to the expectations of Nigeria as a group. But I must say that the House has done better than the Senate. They have shown more maturity. They seem to be more productive. I remember once that they protested that they have so many of their bills in the Senate and that the Senate is lagging behind. Even though we expect that they will do more.”

Beyond the number of bills introduced by the Green Chamber, which is also pushing for state police, local government autonomy and special seats for women and physically challenged persons in the ongoing constitutional review exercise, pundits say the House has performed abysmally in the discharge of its oversight function.

While the House has embarked on several probes, not much has come out of the probes. For instance, one of the major probes embarked upon by the House, in the last two years, was an investigation into alleged job racketeering in Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs). Though the parliament had promised that the probe, which uncovered alleged sleaze in the recruitment of staff by the federal government, would be pursued to its logical conclusion, nothing concrete came from it.

Also, apart from the tax reforms bills, which generated furore in the polity, critics say most Executive bills, including requests for approval for borrowing, are passed without little or no scrutiny. Ironically, Abbas, on assumption as speaker, had promised that the House, under his leadership, will take its oversight responsibility very seriously.

The African Democratic Congress ( ADC), in a statement by its interim national publicity secretary, Bolaji Abdullahi, recently berated the Speaker for alleged double speak on the country’s debt burden. A statement credited to Abbas had expressed concerns over the country’s debt crisis. However, hours later, the speaker disowned the statement, saying that the House supports federal government borrowing.

However, the ADC stated that “the principle of checks and balances was not included in our Constitution for decoration, it exists to protect Nigerians from precisely this kind of unrestrained executive overreach. Yet today, what we witness is not legislative oversight, but legislative complicity. The National Assembly, instead of being a bulwark against excess, has become a conveyor belt for executive wishes.

“We wish to remind the Speaker and the APC-led administration that Nigeria’s debt crisis is not an abstract economic theory. It is a lived reality. Every naira borrowed without accountability translates into a child out of school and a hospital patient without care. The Speaker was right the first time — our debt is out of control, and our children’s future is being written in red ink.”

Ohuabunwa told Daily Sun that that the greatest shortcoming of the Green Chamber is the lack of rigorous interrogation of proposals by the Executive, noting that “the only area where I have problem with them is that I do not see sufficient rigour in looking at Executive bills. Things that come from the government seem to have easy passage. I am not saying that they should be an obstacle. But they should show rigour.

“They seem to generally dance to the whims and caprices of the Executive, that way, they disappoint the people. Because people see them as their safety net between the Executive and the people.”

For Jide Ojo, a public affairs analyst, members of the National Assembly, including the members of the House, are allegedly more concerned with their survival than offering good governance to the people. He noted that despite having a legislative agenda, the parliament has not done much in the pursuit of the agenda.

According to him,” When you look at them, they have not really offered much hope of better governance, it has been more of survival, how to get return tickets. How to win the next election. I think that has been their primary focus. I think they do have a legislative agenda. Both chambers have legislative agenda, but if you talk of how much of that legislative agenda they have been able to achieve, it will be very glaring that they still have a long way to go.

“You see them inserting trillions of constituency projects in the budget that there is no money to implement. Government is on a borrowing spree, we have not seemed much of accountability. We can see some efforts on their part, but the majority view is that given the huge emolument they take home every month Nigeria deserves better service delivery.”

Nonetheless, the deputy chairman, House Committee on Media and Public Affairs, Philip Agbese, in a recent chat with journalists, said the House has surpassed its Legislative Agenda. Agbese, who was responding to a publication criticising the performance of the Green Chamber, said, “We continue to act as The People’s House, leveraging bills, motions and oversight to serve Nigerians diligently.”

He added, “ Our performance should be measured not by idealistic benchmarks alone but by the substantial, real-world progress achieved across all legislative fronts.”