After more than two months of a long vacation, the Nigerian National Assembly resumed on Tuesday, September 24, 2024. With less than three months to the end of the year, the National Assembly is returning to legislative business with several issues outstanding. First is Constitution alteration; \u00a0second is electoral reform and then the 2025 national budget. Fourth is the likely consideration and screening of new ministers whom Bayo Onanuga, President Tinubu\u2019s Special Adviser on Information and Strategy has said, will be forwarded to the Senate for confirmation hearing soon. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
There are other key issues as well\n\u2013 implementation of the new national minimum wage, serious citizens\u2019 agitations\nabout cost of living, escalating insecurity and many more. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
In real terms, the National\nAssembly has only the full month of October and November and with limited\nnumber of days in December owing to the end of year holidays, to address these\nmultiple issues. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Committees on Constitution\nReview in the Senate and House of\nRepresentatives set out a work plan with an objective to seeing the Constitution\nreview process conclude by 2025. Outstanding activities for 2024 according to\nthe work plan include zonal and national public hearings on the Constitution\nalteration bills before the National Assembly, follow-up retreats of the\nCommittees, and engagements with State Houses of Assembly set for early next\nyear. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
There have also been the efforts by\nthe Joint Committees on Electoral Committees in the Senate and House of\nRepresentatives to achieve the passage of a new\/amendment of the Electoral Act.\nThe Committees recently met with stakeholders from political parties and the\njudiciary to make consultations for electoral reform. It is pertinent that any\nmodifications to the electoral process are concluded well ahead of the 2027\ngeneral elections to ensure smooth implementation. However, there are some\naspects of electoral reform that may be dependent on the conclusion of\nConstitution reform by the National Assembly. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Senate and House of\nRepresentatives on September 26 approved an additional N288 billion Supplementary\nBudget for the Federal Capital Territory Authority (FCTA). The National\nAssembly had earlier passed a supplementary budget of N98.5 billion for the\nFCTA in June 2024. The initial 2024 budget of FCTA is N1.2 trillion. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
As the 2024 year nears its end, one\nof the issues on the front burner of the National Assembly is the 2025 National\nBudget. The President should present the 2025 budget before the end of the\nyear. In line with section 21(2) the Fiscal Responsibility Act, it is\nexpected that government corporations and agencies would have submitted their\nrespective annual budgets for 2025 to the Minister of Finance at the end of\nAugust. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Last year, the 2024 Appropriation\nBill was presented on 29th<\/sup> November 2023, passed by the National\nAssembly on 30th<\/sup> December 2024 and received presidential assent on 1st<\/sup>\nJanuary 2024. This \u2018record time\u2019 for passage did not appear to give enough\nopportunity for scrutiny of the details of the proposals contained in the\nbudget. The budget became the subject of controversy when Senator Abdul Ningi\ninsinuated that the budget was padded. <\/p>\n\n\n\n On other emerging issues\nsuch as skirmishes within the oil and\ngas industry, including the rising costs of petroleum products and the back and\nforth between Dangote Refinery and the Nigerian National Petroleum Company\nLimited (NNPCL), the ad-hoc Committee set up by the House of Representatives to\ninvestigate these issues is yet to submit any report. <\/p>\n\n\n\n There are also several\nother issues that demand the National Assembly\u2019s intervention. Since August,\nNigerians have been protesting in the streets demanding an end to the worsening\nhigh cost of living in the country. An #EndBadgovernance protest rocked the\ncountry in August, leaving unresolved the complaints of the protesters.\nInflation is at an all-time high. Official figures put it at 32.15% in August\n2024. Observers feel that the rates of inflation in the country may be closer\nto 50% than the numbers quoted by the government. To put this in context,\ninflation in Kenya \u2013 an African country stood at 3.6% in September 2024. <\/p>\n\n\n\n There is also the big issue\nof insecurity. Daily, Nigerians from all walks of life and across the length\nand breadth of the country are kidnapped for ransom with kidnapping becoming a\nmajor industry in the country and the security services looking on helplessly\nand refusing to act. The National Assembly has shown no ability or initiative\nin responding to these issues. And yet, Nigerians are in consternation as to\nwhy these crises remain and are unresolved. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Nigerians will be watching\nclosely to see the National Assembly deliver on its commitments to\nconstitutional and electoral reform, as well as other specific issues indicated\nin their Legislative Agenda. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" After more than two months of a long vacation, the Nigerian National Assembly resumed on Tuesday, September 24, 2024. With less than three months to the end of the year, the National Assembly is returning to legislative business with several issues outstanding. First is Constitution alteration; \u00a0second is electoral reform and then the 2025 national […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2768,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3634","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\/3634","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=3634"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3634\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3639,"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3634\/revisions\/3639"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2768"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3634"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3634"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3634"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}