9th Senate’ Legislative Agenda: How Far, So Far?, By Solomon Ayado
POLITICS DIGEST – Revitalisation of agriculture, industrialisation, power generation and other key priorities of the 9th Senate are yet to be achieved.
Shortly after it was inaugurated, the 9th Senate had rolled out a legislative agenda to enhance stability in the legislative activities and also foster national development.
The ambitious legislative agenda was explained to be a framework that will guide Senate operations in the next four years.
In the agenda, the Senate had resolved to return Nigeria to the January-December budget cycle, approve legislative frameworks to curb increasing youth unemployment, alleviate poverty and the menace of out-of-school children in the country.
Also, the creation of special health centres in the six geopolitical zones, fast-tracking the passage of the Petroleum Industry Bill (PIB), electoral reform, blocking revenue leakages, Open National Assembly Policy and cutting down Federal Government’s agencies, were featured in the agenda.
Other major agenda include; security of lives and property, national unity and progress, fight against corruption, eradication of ethnicity and religion, as well as, general development of infrastructure.
The Senate had said it is concerned that the country is underdeveloped because of vital sectors that are not viable.
The consideration was sequel to a report submitted by the Senate ad-hoc committee on the 9th Senate’s Legislative Agenda. Senator Adamu Aliero (Kebbi Central), chairman of the committee, presented the report.
While the lawmakers took turns to air their views, they had unanimously questioned why the country is faced with stunted growth and abject poverty.
The Senators agreed that the new legislative agenda is imperative to reposition the National Assembly so as to improve national economy, national security, public finance management and ensure efficient service delivery.
Some of the sectors facing major challenges, which the lawmakers urged the executive arm to give proper attention to include; budget and appropriation, youth unemployment, education, healthcare delivery, mass housing, gender issues and the economy.
Others were oil and gas sector, which it said the vagaries of international oil market make Nigeria vulnerable. It called for improvement in revenue generation, among others.
Rochas Okorocha, urged the Senate to introduce the principle of sacrifice in the nation’s leadership to make life affordable to generality of people.
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In his reaction, Senator Ajayi Borofice (Ondo North) who said Nigeria should concentrate more on development of science and technology, insisted that it is the only way the country would compete favorably with other technologically developed countries such as China and Japan.
However, investigations have shown that so far, the Senate has achieved the revert of the budget cycle from January to December and has also constituted a committee to review the security architecture of the country. Similarly, the Senate has formed a 57-man committee to review the constitution.
Meanwhile, other critical parts of the legislative agenda are yet to be addressed. Some of the agenda include PIB, unemployment, agriculture power generation, the fight against corruption among others. It is expected that such would be given the needed attention by the lawmakers, as events proceed.
Ahmad Lawan, the Senate president, has explained that the Senate cannot in any way forfeit other critical parts of the agenda, and assured that the lawmakers would not relent but employ all measures in achieving the target.
“At our plenary proceedings, we took the decision to convene roundtable discussions on three critical sectors of our economy. This exercise started with the power sector. The Federal Government in recent years has invested billions of dollars in this sector, most of which money appear to have gone down the drain as the problems of inadequate power supply continue to plague Nigeria.
“Even the subsequent privatization of the sector has had no visible impact. In fact, many Nigerians believe that we allowed ourselves to be further defrauded through the privatisation of the sector.
“But this is not the time for lamentation. We are determined to find a way out of this national quagmire. The Senate Committee on Power assembled relevant stakeholders in the sector at the roundtable discussions who made useful suggestions, which will hopefully guide us in our determination to end Nigeria’s power shame.
“We held a similar exercise on the steel and solid minerals sector and, we are focusing on the Agriculture sector. Solid minerals and Agriculture offer us great potential to transform our economy and revenue profile and wean Nigeria from the current unsustainable reliance on oil.
“We are still expecting the reports of the relevant Committees on these three sectors but I can assure Nigerians that this Senate is ready and willing to confront all these problems head-on through appropriate legislative interventions. In doing this, we shall be complementing the initiatives of the Executive in this direction,” Lawan stated.
Solomon Ayado writes from Abuja
