I can never retire to NASS, don’t have patience to be lawmaker – El-Rufai
The Kaduna State governor, Nasir El-Rufai, said that he was not considering retiring to the National Assembly because he does not have the patience to be a lawmaker.
The governor stated this on Monday while appearing as Chairman of the distinguished parliamentarians lecture series of the National Institute for Legislative and Democratic Studies in Abuja.
He said: “I can never function in the legislature. The hard work required to lobby your colleagues for bills and motions to be passed, [that is] what some of us do not have and cannot stomach.
“In the Legislature, all are equal and it is difficult to manage equals. In the Executive, it is easy, because it is easy to manage your subordinates. I can hire and fire, but that is not the same with the legislature.
“I cannot never retire to the legislature because I cannot function there”.
While setting agenda for the 9th National Assembly, Mr El-rufai, urged the lawmakers to ensure the enactment of state and community policing law, adding that the current policing system in the country would not work.
According to him, Nigeria is the only country with centralised policing system, the national assembly must ensure it enact a new law to take care of the policing system in the country.
He said that Nigeria remained the only country with a unitary judiciary, adding that the national assembly should ensure such was addressed before the expiration of its tenure.
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He also urged the lawmakers to enact a law that would ensure it made the first 12 years of education free and compulsory from primary to secondary school.
According to Mr El-rufai, Nigeria can never make progress without educating everyone in the country.
El-rufai said that reforming the local government autonomy to make each Local Government flexible to meet the need of the state should also be the priority of the 9th assembly.
He said, “these are things that need some creative legislation by the 9th assembly and they must ensure these are achieved before it winds up in June”.
Commending the leadership of Ahmad Lawan, the Senate President and Femi Gbajabiamila, the Speaker of the House of Representatives, he said “the two are perhaps the most experienced legislators in the country”.
He said, the lecture became necessary because the national assembly was the most decapitated branch of government as it was usually dissolved whenever there was a coup.
“So this is why the lecture is important to continue to build capacity. There is a need to have this kind of interaction from time to time to make the legislature work better,” he said.
He said the 9th Assembly had passed the most important legislations in the history of Nigeria.
Responding, Mr Lawan said Mr El-Rufai’s remarks on the right to hire and fire was not applicable to the lawmakers.
According to him, “this is a complete reversal because our colleagues hire and can fire us but my colleagues in the 9th assembly have been supporting us.”
