2026 National Assembly Open Day: Matters arising

The Tenth National Assembly (2023-2027) held its three-day 2026 Open Day activities between July 14 and 16, 2026, which offered the general public an opportunity to see aspects of the routine enterprise of Nigeria’s central legislature. With the theme: “Three Years of the 10th Assembly: Advancing Transparency, Inclusion and Reform,” the exercise offered a befitting tribute to the enterprise of the institution as it provided citizens the opportunity of direct engagement with senators and members of the House of Representatives, as well as other organs of the country’s arm of government, which is listed by the constitution as first among equals.

Moreover, given that the life of the Tenth National Assembly expires by early June 2027, the 2026 Open Day exercise might as well serve as the valedictory dispensation for it; hence, it enjoys more than casual significance.

For many reasons, the Nigerian legislature at literally every tier of governance, ranging from the 774 local governments and the 36 state assemblies, is often denied its pride of place, even as it constitutes the very point where citizens’ input in governance is provided for formally.

As the arm of government that exists for the primary purpose of fostering citizen participation in governance, the legislature is the crucible of democracy as it provides for representation of constituents in statutorily delineated constituencies. This condition makes it the eyes, ears and mouth of the people. Yet it is often seen as being relegated to the status of an appendage of the executive arm, which is generally seen as the dispenser and enforcer of state power.

Yet such a dispensation hardly vitiates the statutory potency, democratic credentials and notionally populist orientation of the legislature. That is so unless the very legislators fail to assert themselves as is often the case in Nigeria. Hence, the 2026 National Assembly Open Day exercise remains a most welcome dispensation that accentuates the people-oriented posture of the institution.

Equally commendable is the address of the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Tajudeen Abbas, which in no small measure traversed, along with other areas, the high points of the enterprise of the institution. Of particular interest remains the fact that the 10th National Assembly received as many as 2742 bills, out of which 363 had been passed while 72 had been assented to by President Bola Tinubu. Just as well, the institute received over 800 petitions, many of which had been resolved through legislative intervention.

While his address did not feature only adulation for the institution, it also accommodated appreciation of some of the concerns of Nigerians over the state of the nation and, in particular, the interface between the National Assembly and the executive arm, state police, reserved parliamentary seats for women and the physically challenged, among others. These are among the concerns of Nigerians with respect to the enterprise of the nation’s legislature.

Just as well, beyond his take are also other areas of public concern which the institution needs to accommodate as they detract from the merit of its enterprise. Most pronounced among such areas for markup in the performance of the institution is that of information management. After all, if for any reason, a public institution finds itself not riding along with its perception before the public, the onus lies with it to address that aspect of its performance. And for the institution, much of whatever misgivings by the wider public often remain reduceable to paucity of information in that area.

That is why, whereas Abbas may have eulogised the institution, there are some areas of weaknesses of the Nigeria’s National Assembly, which its leadership needs to take into consideration. One of these is the widespread questionable public perception that the National Assembly as unduly and chronically subservient to the executive arm, in a manner that has earned the institution the toga of a rubberstamp legislature. The public cite this tendency as a cause of ineffectual oversight of public funds and a persistent focus on personal patronage rather than constituent needs. In a wider context, such flaws erode public trust and cripple the legislature’s ability to drive good governance.

To accentuate the public concern is the fact that whereas it holds constitutional powers to investigate government agencies and expose corruption, the National Assembly’s oversight function remains critically weak. Committee probes often end without concrete outcomes, and findings are rarely fully implemented.

Another area of misgiving by not a few Nigerians is that of perceived vulnerability of the budget process. Currently trending is the case of the PFIPC – a parastatal whic origin is controversial with the entire matter presently before a court of law. To many Nigerians, the national budgeting process is frequently marred by manipulation, lack of transparency and unauthorised insertions (often termed padding). This allows for the funding of suspicious or non-existent projects at the expense of national development.

A further area of concern over the performance comes from a high turnover rate of experienced lawmakers, which leads to the factor of institutional capacity deficits.

Another area of the Assembly’s own handicap is that of financial and operational dependence on the executive arm, which spawns the syndrome and not only limits its autonomy but manifests in weak enforcement powers. Hence under the current constitutional framework, the legislature is often powerless to enforce its resolutions or arrest executive appointees who blatantly disregard legislative summons. This limits the Assembly’s ability to assert its authority as a co-equal branch of government.

However, whereas the cited handicaps remain needy of attention by the institution, a higher level of sustained enlightenment from the perspective of a democratising Nigerian society with its multifarious, social diversities will largely help the situation.

Meanwhile, beyond them also lie some crying reforms that would further the impact of the National Assembly on the politics and economy of the country. Top among these is the adoption of a national converge of the nation’s state legislatures with the National Assembly. To accentuate the imperative of this dispensation is the example of the other arms of government, namely, the executive and judiciary. Whereas in these arms operatives at both the national and state tiers of governance meet regularly and on schedule, to fashion wider-perspective driven strategic approaches to national development, it remains out of place that the legislature, which should oversight their functions, operates without formal, regular interface among the tiers of governance.

Meanwhile, congratulations to the Tenth National Assembly over the 2026 Open Day activities.

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