Reforming the Nigerian National Assembly for Legislative Effectiveness: Issues, Constraints and Way-Forward
Reforming the Nigerian National Assembly for Legislative Effectiveness: Issues, Constraints and Way-Forward

Summary/Abstract: The persistent refusal of the Nigerian legislators to disclose to the public their actual earningshas continued to generate comments which, among other issues, have led to agitations for the reformof the National Assembly to reduce the cost of governance in Nigeria, especially in the wake of thescrapping of the Senegalese Senate in 2012 and the recent ‘yes’ vote to scrap the upper chamber inMauritania in 2017. In addition, the intensity of the recent claims by a federal lawmaker, HonourableAbdulmumin Jibrin on the pattern of running the National Assembly in terms of scandalous extrabudgetaryallowances of lawmakers and secrecy of legislative activities among others, is too weightyto be ignored, hence the significance and inevitatability of researching into these issues. It is againstthis backdrop that this paper examines the issues and arguments surrounding the calls for reforming theNational Assembly. The paper adopted mixed-method research design and found that the officialsalaries and allowances of Nigerian legislators are relatively low in comparison with what obtains inother climes. It also found some elements of lopsidedness in the House’s seats distribution as somestates with lower population are given more seats than some with higher population.

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