Hold National Assembly Responsible for Nigeria’s Economic Stagnation, Weak Currency – Ita Enang

By Chinedu Echianu

Nigeria’s faltering economy, weak currency and other stagnating economic indices have been attributed to the poor and ineffective oversight function of the current and previous National Assembly.

This was the opinion of a former lawmaker in the upper legislative chamber, Senator Ita Enang at a Roundtable on Best Practices and Strategies for Strengthening Legislative Oversight in Nigeria, organized by the National Institute for Legislative and Democratic Studies (NILDS).

According to Enang, one of the lead presenters at the Roundtable and former Chairman of the Senate Committee on Business and Rules, the legislative arm of government ought to be a gathering of Cerebral individuals with in-depth understanding of legislative processes but which has sadly been dominated by Politicians who see the hallowed Chambers as a retirement home or a money-making institution.

“The three core functions of the legislature in Nigeria are lawmaking, oversight and representation, and of the three, oversight appears the least attended, most neglected, and least accorded prominence which has led to the reviews of the laws made, and consequently to the collapse of governance and the economy and I take absolute responsibility in my submission that it is the absence of oversight and the failure of the legislature that have led to the collapse of governance and collapse of the Nigerian economy, and I submit again that the collapses of the Nigerian economy is found on the desk and the laps and the legs of the National Assembly.” Enang stated in his presentation.

Enang who expressed outrage at “the gradual deterioration of oversight activities in both chambers of the National Assembly”, drew comparisons to his days in the 7th Senate when he frontally challenged what he described as the financial recklessness of the then Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) Sanusi Lamido Sanusi.

The second lead presenter at the Roundtable and former member of the House of Representatives, Hon. Ossai Nicholas Ossai enumerated the major obstacles to effective oversight function to include; weak legislative enforcement and poor follow up, integrity issues, weak institutional capacity, lack of independence of the legislature, poor stakeholders engagement, overlapping and over bloated standing committees, resistance and lack of cooperation from ministries, departments and agencies of government, executive dominance and interference, inadequate technical support, corruption and personal interest, poor implementation of oversight findings, limited public participation and transparency and the lack of a legislative budget office among others.

He described over bloated committees in both chambers of the National Assembly and the funding of oversight activities by organizations being oversighted, as some of the reasons for ineffective oversight in the 10th National Assembly and previous ones.

Ossai urged the leadership of the National Assembly to begin sanctioning weak and non performing committees, adding that this is the major way to ensure that others sit up and perform optimally.

According to Ossai; “Lack of legislative budget office, we passed NABRO (National Assembly Budget and Research Office) more than three times in our assembly, not ascended to by the executive and yet we cannot override them.

The budget office is critical when you talk about issues of oversight because you have really experienced budget gurus who will go out to be able to compare the executive findings in terms of Bill of Quantities and be able to make projections.
“Why is today, National Assembly don’t want to strengthen themselves.

I moved a motion in the ninth assembly, that we should override Mr. President on the issue, but they said I wanted to remove Mr. President from office”.
The Roundtable had in attendance clerks of committees in the National Assembly and representatives of Civil Society organizations such as Bugdit.