The Speaker, House of Representatives, Alhaji Aminu Tambuwal on Thursday said that the House would not be intimidated in its effort to expose corruption in Nigeria.
Tambuwal said this in his address to mark the end of the third legislative session of the 7th House of Representatives.
Hon Aminu Waziri Tambuwal,
“I wish to assure Nigerians that the House of Representatives will not be intimidated into abdicating its sacred duty to provide robust check and balances to executive action, ” he said.
The speaker decried the resort to courts by Nigerians to deliberately obstruct the operations of the legislature.
“We witnessed the dawn of a disturbing trend whereby people now go to court to stop the National Assembly from exercising its constitutional mandate and conducting its internal operations,” he said.
According to him, it is not appropriate for the courts to interfere in the workings of the legislature.
“It is neither usual nor appropriate for the judiciary to be used pre-emotively to stop the legislature from acting in the first place.”
Tambuwal urged all members of the House to recommit themselves to the defence of the integrity of the legislative process.
He said that the growing culture of impunity on the part of public officers in Nigeria was impacting negatively on ethos of accountability.
On oversight functions, he said that the House did its best to exercise this important constitutional mandate, adding that such had always been contentious.
He said that the oversight function embarked by the various committees of the House had revealed serious corruption cases in the public sector.
On the abduction of the Chibok schoolgirls, he said that the House would come up with ideas to protect other Nigerian children against such trauma in the future.
He commended the military for its gallant fight in the ongoing campaign against terrorism.
Tambuwal said that during the period under review, a total of 169 bills were introduced, out of which 46 passed second reading and 27 were subsequently passed into law.
He said that six more bills were awaiting the action of the Committee of the whole of the House.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the seventh House was inaugurated on June 6, 2011.
