NASS: After ‘Buying’ N57bn SUVs, Akpabio Says Nigerians Don’t Respect Lawmakers

Godswill Akpabio, Nigeria’s Senate President says the National Assembly is a subject of ridicule by Nigerians who do not understand how the arm of government works.

The Senate President said the lawmakers are not being appreciated for the work they do for the country.

The leader of the Nigerian legislature spoke on Sunday at the 100th birthday colloquium of a Second Republic lawmaker, Senator Kunle Oyero, organised by the Abeokuta Grammar School Old Boys Association in Abeokuta, Ogun State.

Akpabio was represented by the senator representing Ogun Central, Shuaib Salisu, at the event.

The Senate President said, “The one arm of government that people don’t really understand and is always a subject of ridicule and attack is the legislature. In fact, people sometimes don’t think legislators do anything at all.

“The problem is that the metric of measuring the performance of the legislators by the electorate is different from what is contained in the syllabus. The syllabus will say as a legislator your role is to make laws, perform oversight functions and make appropriations; those are the three things a legislator must perform.

“But any senator that confines himself to that will not get a return ticket even in his party because the metric of measuring the performance of legislators is the number of transformers, and other material things they give to the people they are representing.”

He spoke amidst suggestion among Nigerians that the lawmakers only think about themselves regardless of what the country is going through.

Recently, the Assembly came under serious criticism after spending a whopping N56 billion to purchase SUVs for Senators and members of the House of Representatives.

This comes amidst the economic hardship facing many Nigerians who have now been forced to tighten their belts, due to the various austerity measures introduced by the government.

Not a few Nigerians and human rights bodies have criticized the ostentatious lifestyles of Nigerian lawmakers in the midst of poverty in the country.

For instance, the Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project, SERAP, has dragged the NASS to court over the bogus SUVs project.

In the suit, the human rights body has asked a Federal High Court in Lagos to stop the lawmakers from going ahead to purchase the vehicles.