The 8th Senate formally took off on Tuesday, June 9, 2015. Like the executive, headed by President Muhammadu Buhari, the Senate, led by its president, Bukola Saraki upon its inauguration was in no doubt that Nigerians were bursting with lofty expectations from it. The reason for this is all too clear: the APC which swept away the PDP from the executive and control of the Senate after 16 unbroken years, did so on the strength of a strong promise of change. The promised change meant that things would be done differently better, and perhaps faster, by the three arms of government in the direction of delivering governance outcomes.
Senator Saraki’s emergence as the president of the Senate may have faced some turbulence from some of his colleagues who do not share his dreams, but commendable from both the Senate president and every of his colleagues in the past one year is that no misunderstanding or disagreement has been allowed to assume strength enough to impede the sacred legislative work of the chamber.
Despite the needless protracted instability in the Senate, which manifested right from the first blast of the whistle, legislative outcomes in the 8th Senate within the past one year, hardly pale in comparison with those of the preceding sessions. This is given the fact that the president of the Senate while managing the internal wrangling in the chamber has in the same breath faced all manners of high pressure extraneous distractions.
Observers think that the Senate can beat its chest for having had an illustrious outing in the past one year, especially in the face of all that have tended to sunder its unity, and distract it from carrying out its primary constitutional duties.
To provide the needed legal backbone to fight the pervasive allure of cybercrime in the country, the Senate passed the “Electronic Transaction Bill 2015,” into law. This law was a direly needed legal intervention in the direction of cleansing the country’s image as a haven of con artists and global hub of Advance Fee Fraud.
To accelerate the wheel of justice, the chamber enacted the FCT High Court (Amendment) Law 2016. This law saw to the increase of the number of judges in the Federal Capital Territory, FCT, from the overwhelmed 35 to 75. The reduction of the workload of judges in the FCT high courts became necessary as a result of the exploding population of the federal capital, which has also seen to a corresponding increase in criminal, political and socio-economic activities.
There is the enactment into law of the “Insolvency and Debt Recovery Bill 2015,” geared towards ensuring greater ease in accessing credit by the local business community. The absence of a bankruptcy and insolvency law worked on the side of credit institutions in their creation of inhibitions towards securing loans and heightening the cost of borrowing, and an environment of non-performing loans. In totality, a review and amendment of 54 laws, inhibiting the ease of doing business in Nigeria are presently in top gear in the Senate.
In the past one legislative year, it has been revealed that the Senate received 125 petitions, of which 32 were conclusively treated, and 82 undergoing consideration.
In the area of motions, 162 were considered and resolutions that are critical to the lives of Nigerians passed on them. These include those on the ban on the import of Nigeria agricultural produce by EU countries, the motion on intervention in flood and erosion disasters in the country, as well as that of the threat, posed by landslide in parts of the country. It is also on record that it was a Senate’s motion that led to abolition of fixed charges in electricity tariff in the country.
While the Senate is fine-tuning steps to enact the “North-east Development Commission Bill,” aimed at bringing governance and development faster and more elaborately to the region, ravaged by terrorists activities into law, the push for the establishment of Presidential Intervention Committee for the Rehabilitation of the North-east, is also to the credit of the Senate.
Remarkable is that the Senate has gone beyond legislative activities to intervene as a public-spirited institution in giving meaning to the lives of the people of the Nigerian North-east. Its extra-legislative activities in this direction include: high level Senate visitation of the North-east, led by the Senate president, and a good financial donation to Maiduguri IDP camps.
In diverse fronts, the Senate, led by Senator Saraki has made remarkable interventions that saw to outstanding good governance strides by the executive in the past one year. Of note is the Senate’s legislative intervention that led to the review of CBN’s foreign exchange policy in the direction of enabling small business owners access foreign exchange for their operations. Again, the Senate’s probe on the implementation of the TSA policy, it is said, saved the country a handsome N20 billion. It was also the present Senate’s scrutiny that exposed the abuse of the import duty waivers on rice. Noteworthy is that pursuant to its good governance drive, the present Senate elected to adopt a Legislative Agenda benchmark, this is in addition to its proposed establishment of a Transparency and Delivery Commission.
Towards the need to revive the Nigerian economy through increased local production and patronage of locally made products, the Senate president specially stood out in the past one year, in leading his colleagues in the campaign for the promotion of made in Nigeria goods.
While the current Senate would no doubt have achieved more in a clement legislative environment, hopes are high that both internal and external forces, gnawing at the cords of unity, peace and progress in the chamber would ease their bite for the greater interest of Nigerians.
(Today.ng)
