Nigeria\u2019s Democracy marked 25 years of uninterrupted civilian rule on May 29, 2024. The legislative arm of government is the biggest beneficiary of this accomplishment. In the Fourth Republic, the National Assembly has now attained 25 years of uninterrupted existence, while the earlier republics – First to Third, only had brief life spans. The First Republic lasted until 1966, collapsing after 6 years of Nigeria\u2019s independence from Great Britain. The 13-year period of military rule, civil war, coups and counter coups followed and lasted until 1979, when the Second Republic came into being. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Second Republic was short-lived.\nLasting only 4 years, it was truncated by another military coup in December\n1983, which period lasted until 1999. In this period, Nigeria suffered one of\nthe most brutal military dictatorships in the African Continent, superintended\nover by Gen. Muhammadu Buhari, Gen. Ibrahim Babangida and General Sani Abacha.\nIt took several years of citizens\u2019 activism, fights by human rights activists\nand incredibly brutal suppression by the military dictators mentioned herein to\novercome military rule in Nigeria and return to democracy in May 1999.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In-between this period, Gen.\nBabangida tried to run a diarchy and attempted to create a Third Republic that\nwill be a combination of military and civilian rule. This experiment only\nlasted a few months, resulting in the failed Third Republic in 19993 when Gen.\nSani Abacha, one of Africa\u2019s most murderous regimes overthrew the diarchy\nsystem led by a hand-picked Ernest Shonekan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The beginning of the Fourth\nRepublic on May 29, 1999 was after shaky elections that human rights activists\nand organisations had expressed serious misgivings about. Pleas made to human\nrights activists by international actors and governments failed to reduce the\nscepticism. The activists preferred to monitor the conduct of the elections\nrather than participate in it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Under the banner of Transition Monitoring\nGroup (TMG), human rights organisations came together to observe the elections\nunder the short-lived administration of Gen. Abdulsalami Abubakar who handed\nover power to Olusegun Obasanjo, a former military ruler who was pivotal in\nending military rule in 1979 and handing over to the civilian administration\nled by Alhaji Shehu Shagari in the Second Republic, in October 1979.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Fourth Republic which came into\nplace on May 29, 1999 returned with the Senate and House of Representatives at\nthe national level and State Houses of Assembly in the 36 States of the\ncountry. The legislative business of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT)\nresided with NASS. Although Nigerians expressed some disappointment and\nunfulfilled expectations with the Fourth Republic, human rights activists,\nparticularly from the military era continue to express the important need for\ndemocracy to be supported in the country, citing the incredible deterioration\nof human rights and values that the country suffered under military rule. The\nconstitutional guarantees of separation of powers under the 1999 Constitution,\nas well as different mechanisms of accountability under civilian rule remain\nimportant for the survival of democracy in the country.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Since the return of the legislature\nin Nigeria\u2019s system of government 25 years ago, significant laws have been\npassed for the purpose of accountability and responsibility in government. Some\nnotable laws passed by the National Assembly that have been key to good\ngovernance in the country include: Procurement Act, Fiscal Responsibility Act,\nNigeria Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (NEITI) Act, Freedom of\nInformation Act, several alterations to the Nigerian constitution, a new\nElectoral Act, a new Police Act, etc.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
As the Nigerian Legislature sets to\nmark 25 years of uninterrupted legislative business, citizens express concern\nthat their expectations will need to be taken on board if their faith in\ndemocracy is to be strengthened.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Policy and Legal Advocacy Centre\n(PLAC) has been working to support the building of a strong legislature in\nNigeria. Our work with the legislature spans several of its most important Committees,\nbuilding capacities of lawmakers and staff to fulfill their constitutional\nresponsibilities of law making, oversight and representation. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Nigeria\u2019s Democracy marked 25 years of uninterrupted civilian rule on May 29, 2024. The legislative arm of government is the biggest beneficiary of this accomplishment. In the Fourth Republic, the National Assembly has now attained 25 years of uninterrupted existence, while the earlier republics – First to Third, only had brief life spans. The First […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":3595,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3587","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3587","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3587"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3587\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3596,"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3587\/revisions\/3596"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3595"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3587"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3587"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3587"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}