By Oluwakemi Kindness
The National Assembly is set to translate Nigerian laws into Hausa, Yoruba, Igbo and other local languages to make legislation easier for citizens to access and understand.
The Executive Secretary of the National Assembly Library Trust Fund, Henry Nwawuba, disclosed this on Monday in Abuja while declaring open the 2026 National Assembly Library Week.
The event is themed, “Parliamentary Memory: Connecting Records, Legislation and the People.”
Nwawuba said the initiative would broaden access to legislative information and help more Nigerians understand laws that affect their daily lives.
He said the National Assembly Library was also developing a Bills Tracker to allow citizens and other users to follow bills and monitor their progress through the legislative process.
Nwawuba said the library was investing in electronic repositories, upgrading its E-Library and developing a mobile application to improve access to parliamentary information.
He said the library would also produce infographics, audiovisual materials and video explainers to simplify Bills, Acts and legislative procedures for the public.
According to Nwawuba, the initiatives would also help tackle inconsistencies in official parliamentary documents and the circulation of fake or unauthorised copies of National Assembly records.
The Clerk to the National Assembly, Kamoru Ogunlana, said the growing digitisation of parliamentary records had increased the risk of cyberattacks, manipulation and impersonation of official sources.
Ogunlana said the National Assembly must therefore strengthen cybersecurity, digital preservation, secure authentication, access controls, backup systems and staff training.
He said the integrity of an Act depended not only on the existence of a document, but also on establishing which version was authentic, authoritative and produced through the proper legal process.
Ogunlana called for stronger collaboration among the National Assembly, the Office of the Attorney-General of the Federation, the Nigerian Law Reform Commission and the Federal Government Press.
He said the collaboration would help ensure that Nigerians have easy access to current and authoritative versions of federal laws.
Ogunlana also highlighted the challenges surrounding the continued use of the Laws of the Federation of Nigeria, LFN 2004.
He explained that the LFN 2004 reflected the laws covered by its revision exercise and was not automatically updated whenever a new Act was enacted.
Ogunlana said the National Assembly Library should therefore move beyond simply storing documents to preserving, authenticating and making parliamentary knowledge accessible to lawmakers, researchers, journalists, civil society organisations, students and the wider public.
Representing the President of the Senate, Godswill Akpabio, Senator Osita Ngwu urged lawmakers to make greater use of the library amid rising misinformation, disinformation and the rapid development of artificial intelligence.
Ngwu described the library as a critical link between evidence, knowledge and legislative decision-making.
The Speaker of the House of Representatives, Tajudeen Abbas, represented by the House Leader, Prof. Julius Ihonvbere, said legislative records were essential to understanding Nigeria’s legislative history and strengthening democratic governance.
Abbas said technology and artificial intelligence could improve legislative research, records preservation and access to information.
He, however, said their adoption must be guided by accuracy, security, professional judgment and protection of the integrity of parliamentary records.
Abbas said the strength of a legislature should be measured not only by the laws it enacted, but also by how effectively it documented its activities, preserved institutional knowledge and made the information available to future generations.
The President of the Nigerian Library Association, Dr Lawal Umar, called for sustained investment in libraries and modern information technology to improve access to legislative information.
Umar also urged stronger collaboration between the National Assembly and state Houses of Assembly.
