The 10^th National Assembly (NASS) resumed on Tuesday July 4, with the election of principal officers of the Senate and House of Representatives by the elected lawmakers. Nigerians have been expressing their expectations from the lawmakers. News Express sought the perspectives of Rights advocates. Here is what they said.

CTA sets agenda,

Faith Nwadishi, Executive Director, Centre for Transparency, Advocacy, states their agenda as underlined here;

General recommendations for the agenda and expectations for the 10th National Assembly in Nigeria.

Legislative Agenda: The 10th National Assembly should prioritize addressing key issues such as security, the economy, infrastructure development, subsidies palliatives, education, healthcare, inclusion especially gender mainstreaming and good governance. These generally reflects the needs and aspirations of the Nigerian people.

Independence and Accountability: The 10th National Assembly should strive for independence from undue influence and ensure accountability to the citizens they represent. They should exercise their constitutional powers effectively and act in the best interest of the people.

Balancing the Relationship with the Executive: While cooperation and collaboration with the Executive branch are important for effective governance, the 10th National Assembly should maintain a healthy balance of power. They should critically review and scrutinize policies and decisions proposed by the Executive, acting as a check and balance, while still finding areas of common ground for the benefit of the nation.

Avoiding the "Rubber Stamp" Perception: To avoid being perceived as a "Rubber Stamp," as the 9th assembly was, the 10th National Assembly should demonstrate their independence by critically reviewing proposed legislation, engaging in robust debates, and making informed decisions based on merit and the interests of the Nigerian people.

Screening of Ministerial and all other Nominees: The 10th National Assembly should conduct thorough and transparent screening processes for ministerial and other nominees. This can include rigorous questioning, vetting of credentials, and evaluation of their capabilities and alignment with the nation's priorities. The screening process should focus on selecting competent and patriotic individuals who are committed to serving the country's best interests.

Ultimately, the specific approach and actions of the 10th National Assembly will be shaped by the collective decisions of its members, their patriotism, commitment to good governance, and the feedback and demands of the Nigerian people.

CISLA Thoughts

For Auwal Ibrahim Musa (Rafsanjani), Executive Director, CISLAC/TI-Nigeria

First and foremost, the Civil Society Legislative Advocacy Centre (CISLAC)/Transparency International in Nigeria (TI-Nigeria) joins all well-meaning Nigerians to felicitate with the leadership and Members of the 10th National Assembly on their recent inauguration into the Federal Law-making institution, marking the beginning of a four-year in steering the wheel of the national legislative affairs.

While the 10th National Assembly emerged from the keenly contested 2023 general elections that widened the legislative turnover, we are duty-bound to highlight some specific issues in legislative mandates that are germane to the overall success of the National Assembly in the next four years.

Legislation:

Legislature as a law-making body of a political unit, usually Federal and State Government, has power to enact, amend, and repeal public policy. Just as it has the mandate to control through legislation all economic, social and political activities of the nation, the legislature must always scrutinize the policies of the executive and provide the framework for the judiciary to efficiently operate.

Within the context of legislation, the National Assembly must pursue adequate reform (through amendment to some specific legislation) in the Defence and Security sector, giving cognisance to the elimination of legal exemptions of the security agencies from the Freedom of Information Act, relevant Procurement Laws and investigation of civilian agencies of the security sector for human rights abuses and other related matters.

Similarly, the National Assembly must consider provision of legislative backing to ensure compliance to various legislative frameworks in the country including Freedom of Information (FOI) Act, Public Procurement Act, National Health Act, and NEITI Remediation.

Institutionalising e-legislature to enhance the legislative process, Constituents’ participation in legislative activities is critical, learning from the pandemic era that revealed the importance of incorporating information technology in technical proceedings in the legislative rules and protocols.

Given the persistent clamour by the people and Civil Society groups, the National Assembly, must consider a legislation that will provide legal backing to the establishment of special courts or strengthen existing courts to expedite justice on corruption cases. This must be complemented by immediate passage of Whistleblower Protection Bill to give legal backing to adequate protection of Whistleblowers in Nigeria

It must consider review and amendment to relevant legislative provisions to strengthen the Accountant General Office to promote public accountability in the allocation and utilisation of funds, while enhancing legislative oversight to block financial leakages in government.

Immediate creation of National Assembly Budget Office is paramount to engage budget scrutiny with thorough recommendations to the Assembly on Appropriation Bill.

More importantly, the National Assembly must consider the introduction and passage of key legislation that align with current socio-economic reality to revamp the ailing critical sector and restore hope of common Nigerians.

Besides, targeted legislative efforts must be made towards revisiting and reviewing the Local Government Autonomy, operational and appointment independent of judiciary, anti-corruption institutions, among other important issues that affect democratic governance in Nigeria.

Oversight:

Oversight activities must be targeted at promoting checks and balances, instilling fiscal discipline, evaluating programmes and performance, improving accountability and transparency in governmental operations.

We are worried by weakening legislative oversight on the executives and processes that paves way for eroded public transparency and accountability among all levels of institutions reportedly soaked in unchecked mismanagement, monumental embezzlement and endemic corruption.

The National Assembly must strengthen oversight activities towards block various unattended loopholes in revenue remittances across the revenue-generating agencies that hitherto fail in, or suspiciously withhold their remittance responsibilities to the Federation Account in guise of operating cost.

This includes the unchecked mismanagement and diversion of Defence and Security funds enabled by shoddy procurement process and lack of accountability.

The legislature must formalise a holistic Monitoring and Evaluation system to evaluate implementation and impacts of laws in ensuring laws are in tandem with societal expectation; analyse and review the annual reports of the Office of the Auditor General of the Federation (OAGF) and take an action against MDAs that did not submit their audited accounts as mandated by the Law; ensure that procurement processes conducted by the respective MDAs are transparent and in line with existing legal and policy frameworks.

Setting up a Multi-stakeholder Legislative Advocacy Tracking Committee on Legislative Agenda is important to monitor and track progress to ensure the agenda serves its intended purpose as a guide for the operations of the Assembly, various standing and ad-hoc committees in delivering concrete development to the Nigerians. The Committee is expected to foster collaboration and coordination in knowledge and financial resources between National Assembly and the Nigerian public; promote accountability – by ensuring regular review, updates, and corrections.

Exemplary transparency must be explored by presiding officers of the 10th National Assembly through proper disclosure of details of legislature’s annual budget and Constituency Allowance paid to every legislator, to enable appropriate tracking and accountability. This by effect will eliminate undemocratic culture of secrecy that dominated budgetary process and financial activities of public institutions.

As some members of Legislative Committees were in the past indicted in bribery and corruption which dominated oversight process and recommendations, the 10th National Assembly must devise stringent measures and sanctions against possible indictment to prevent reoccurrence.

Furthermore, the management of recovered assets has been shrouded in secrecy that paves way for re-looting, diversion, inter-agency rivalry, reported under-priced auctions among relevant institutions anchoring proceeds of crime. The 10th Assembly must strengthen oversight on recovered assets, relevant institutions and ensure strict compliance to the provisions of Asset Recovery and Proceeds of Crime (Recovery and Management) Act, 2022, which provides provide legal and institutional frameworks for confiscation, seizure and recovery and management of assets or proceeds derived from unlawful activities.

Financial control:

It is the core of democracy that legislature controls the finance. That is, no money could be spent or raised by the executive without the previous consent and approval of the legislature. Also, no money can be withdrawn from the Consolidated Fund without authorization of legislature. Annually, budget containing the estimated expenditure and income of the ensuing year is placed before it. The legislatures must ensure effective control over public resources (legislating the budget). Section 80 lays the powers of the legislature with respect over budget.

The National Assembly is expected to be more assertive, thorough and resolute in exercising its constitutional duties as related to the approval of proposals from the executive arm, especially the frequent exorbitant loans request that dominated the administration.

Verbal approval of funds must not be entertained by the 10th National Assembly, as every financial request by the Executive should be channelled through due diligent and thorough scrutiny by Members.

Transparency and accountability in the allocation and implementation of budget as appropriated to the National Assembly, especially as it affects general welfare of staff/aides and Constituency Projects must be upheld. This background will present the legislature as a living example to the executive arm, especially in cases of investigations into alleged financial mismanagement, misappropriation, and budgetary implementation.

The Assembly must establish an active tracking, monitoring and reporting mechanism to ensure transparency and accountability of fund allocation and implementation of Constituency Projects.

Representation:

Representation is an important function of the legislature. The legislature has the primary mandate to carry out representative functions on behalf of the people who in our case, are demarcated in 360 federal constituencies. The legislators have a duty to represent the interests of their individual constituencies through persistent consultation.

Apart from servicing the needs of constituencies, for legislators to be effective, they must listen to their constituents, brief them about legislative and policy issues, aggregate the demands of these constituencies into legislative agenda and project these demands on the floor of the legislative chambers.

Full operationalisation of Constituency Office constitutes the heart of legislators’ duty to facilitate regular consultation to efficiently capture the needs and priorities of the constituents.

The 10th National Assembly must develop a framework for constituency engagement and consultation to ensure full participation of electorates in legislative activities.

Constituency outreach:

When citizens feel that their views are represented in government and their representative bear constituents` interests in mind, they are not only encouraged to participate in legislative process, but also accept the legislature to enact legislation and the executive to implement and enforce it.

On this note, the legislators must be able to disseminate timely information about their actions to their constituents, educate them on political process, gather constituent feedback and act upon suggestions. This will enable the legislators to manage constituents’ expectations of the role, scope and constraints of legislative power, thereby ensuring public confidence and peaceful conduct of legislative assignments.

Just as democracy credibility and sustainability depends, to a large extent, on effective citizens’ participation, and on what it delivers, the quality of democratic politics diminishes if citizens are ignorant about legislature.

Functional Constituency Office must be mainstreamed as a major legislative priority giving its importance to promote inclusive process and harmonise constructive inputs into legislative process as it affects the people.

To strengthen its relation with the constituency, the National Assembly must be available and accessible to the public with legislators reporting back to the constituents on what is happening in the Assembly.

Continued capacity development for legislators:

Given the recent high legislative turnover, the leadership of the National Assembly must as a matter of urgency consider adequate training and retraining programmes for every Member on legislative process, activities including specific issues at Committee levels.

Effective legislatures contribute to good governance by performing important functions that are necessary to sustain democracy in this complex and diverse country. Legislature must have the capacity to translate policies into legislative forms and marshal arguments to convince their colleagues and the executive about these. Upon these, they have to be in the field to ensure that the executive is doing what it should do, especially with respect to appropriation law. Not that they are law enforcement agents, the truth is that their oversight role is a step short of doing law enforcement job.

Capacity building has been found to be a strong tool for effective legislation and should be seen as continuing process and not a one-off thing. There are many areas of engagement by civil society organizations to assist legislative houses improve in the key areas of responsiveness, efficiency and effectiveness as they work to discharge their mandates. Among the focal areas for training and retraining recommended by CISLAC for legislatures include: Legislative Procedure and Practice, Budget Analysis, Oversight, Law and development from human rights perspective, Gender mainstreaming, Constituency Relations, Media and Public Relation, ICT in Legislative Processes, Engaging with Civil Society Organizations, Legislative-executive dialogues.

Before addressing an issue, a legislator must do some homework to understand whole issue including who it affects, what others feel about it, how it will influence future trends, and any other information he or she is able to gather. A legislator must embrace through research. Thorough research allows legislator to present viewpoint with confidence and credibility.

He also recommended a cordial working relations with CSOs.

Cordial Relations with Civil Society Organisations (CSOs):

So far, civil society groups have vigorously pursued democratization and when this was finally achieved, it went ahead to provide the necessary building block for people’s participation in the democratic process; educating and creating awareness for the individual’s participation in the electoral process. Although Nigerians elected their representatives to the constituent assembly, the component of people legislative interface either through direct interactions or organized civil society must be sustained. It was for this perspective that organization like Civil Society Legislative Advocacy Centre (CISLAC) set to work.

There are many ways in which legislature can effectively collaborate with civil society. Legislative Committee can make an open invitation for submissions to all interested parties, individuals as well as organisations, through the press and other media, including its website. There are various credible Civil Society Organisations representing specific issues or interests, which the legislature can use as the most appropriate vehicle for conveying public views into legislative process. They can send specific invitations to relevant civil society known to have an interest in the particular legislation or enquiry under consideration, inviting their submissions. This without doubt will allow inclusiveness in consultative procedures.

Liaising with Legislative Aides:

Legislative aides are like gatekeepers to the legislators. To communicate effectively, it is important that legislators are knowledgeable about the staff that supports them. Legislative aides support legislators by performing tasks such as scheduling, monitoring legislation, and tracking issues specific to the legislator’s district.

In conclusion, Rafsanjani noted; Legislative aides act as liaisons between legislators and constituents, other policymakers, the media, civil society and other stakeholders. When contacting the legislator’s office, in most cases, electorate may not be able to speak directly with legislator. Instead they speak with the legislative aides. Legislators must treat legislative aides with the same professional courtesy they would accord the legislator.

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