10th National Assembly packed with inexperienced lawmakers —Lawan

The Senate President, Ahmad Lawan, said on Thursday the 10th National Assembly would have a handful of inexperienced lawmakers.

Lawan stated this while receiving 2020, 2021, and 2022 annual reports of the activities of the National Assembly Service Commission at his office in the National Assembly Complex, Abuja.

He noted that 30 percent of the lawmakers in the 9th National Assembly would return to the parliament.

He, therefore, called for capacity building for the new lawmakers in order to update their knowledge of the lawmaking process.

Lawan said: “What is critical to us is what happens when we leave. Everybody knows the turnover rate has been very costly and this is without prejudice to anybody elected.

“This is costly in the sense that when you have only about 30 percent of members of the Ninth National Assembly going to the 10th Assembly, you know that you have lost capacity.

“And I use the word costly deliberately because what this means is that, the 10th Assembly, we must make provisions immediately for capacity building for new members of the National Assembly if we want to achieve our goals and set targets.

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“Everybody is enthusiastic. Everybody is ready. We want to come in and continue to contribute to making Nigeria better. But the parliament is not like the Executive.

“You have lost experience. You have lost skills, enterprise, and so on and so forth. These are traits that you need to hit the ground running immediately.

“Therefore, I am using this channel to sound that advisory that the National Assembly will need money, will need more resources for capacity building for members of the National Assembly that are coming new, as well as those staff that we will be working with.

“I also want to urge here that the National Assembly Service Commission, the management of the National Assembly, as well as the management of the National Institute for Legislative and Democratic Studies, will have their hands full because the tenth National Assembly, and I am not speaking for the 10th National Assembly, is yet to be inaugurated, but I know having met many of our Senators-elect, they are all ready to start work immediately we are inaugurated and sworn in.

“So we want your support. You are there. It is the National Assembly membership that is always changing. You will give us the kind of support that will make us do so well.

“Whatever we have achieved, wouldn’t have been achieved without the National Assembly Service Commission and the staff of the National Assembly.”

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