Research
Legislative Turnover in the National Assembly: A Study of the South aEast Zone,1999-2015.
Since 1999, the high turnover of lawmakers in the country has been a source of concern to not a few stakeholders but to academics. It was therefore not surprising that the National Institute for Legislative Studies (NILS) in its latest report conducted in 2014 revealed that Nigeria has the of the Federal Republic of Nigeria requires the legislators to gain the requisite experience to effectively lowest retention rate of lawmakers in the national parliament in the world. The 1999 Constitution discharges their mandate. Consequently, there is decision not to limit the number of times a performing legislator could be re-elected. Despite this, the electorates have the constitutional right to elect or re-elect a legislator. The incessant high turnover of National Assembly members provides a new challenge to democracy. That is, at the inception, one would wonder the level of constructive contributions that would be expected from inexperienced legislators. Re-election of a legislator should under normal circumstance be based on his or her performance and contribution in lawmaking process, representation and oversight functions as well as constituency accountability. However, in several occasions, public deviate in their perception of these constitutional mandates of a legislator, for some selfish and self-serving expectations. With these attitudes, even if a legislator has made meaningful impact in the chamber, he or she may not be re-elected for the failure to play to their tune. Again in some places it is about zoning for substitution not working for the people. This paper seeks to examine the level of Legislators turnover in the South-east between 1999-2015 with a view of addressing this democratic challenge in the region.
The Role of National Assembly in Conflict Resolution: A Case of Anti- Subsidy Strikes of 2012
The legislature has added the responsibility of conflict mediation and resolution to its numerous functions. The legislature has established an enviable record of performance in this area. For instance, since 1999 the legislature has positively intervened and settled several government– labour disputes, be it over minimum wage, ASUU demands for better conditions of service in the Universities or most recently, the fuel subsidy strike. The timing of the removal of subsidy from petroleum products by the Executive was most inauspicious. It came at a time when majority of Nigerians were in their various villages and communities for the Christmas and New Year festivities. They were trapped and stranded as they could not afford the huge escalation in fuel price which moved from N65 to N140 per litre of petrol in the average Nigerian community. No one anticipated such sudden sharp increase as Nigerians had planned the budget for their trips based on existing cost parameters and indices. People were thus thrown into unavoidable economic turmoil and even reduced to the level of destitution and beggary. As the representatives of the people, The National Assembly were inundated with barrage of calls and protestations from our constituents all over the country on their worsening economic situation occasioned by the subsidy removal. Confronted with such a terrible situation, the House of Representatives had to convene an emergency session on a Sunday, 8th January, 2012 (the first of its kind in our legislative history). This culminated in the decision of the House to set up the Hon. Farouk Law an led Ad-Hoc Committee on the Investigation and Monitoring of the Fuel Subsidy regime. To address the urgent matter of the impending strike, the National Assembly set up the Patrick Ikhariale Committee to reach out to Labour and arrest the situation. The findings of the Committee have since revealed that the huge funds being misapplied by a privileged few in our society in the name of o
Internal Revenue Leakages Prevention and Control in the Local Government System
The essence of fund control, cash flow management and fraud detection is to avoid wrong payment, improper and use of funds in the management of local government money. Funds Control Techniques are the products of statute (Acts, Decrees, Edict and Bye-Laws) and Regulations. They may be financial or administrative. The State funds are largely governed by the Public. Administration Law and Financial Instructions issued from time to time through circulars. This paper argues that Local Government Fund Control is largely governed by the provisions of Financial Memoranda. All issues of inadequate fund in the local government revolve around this particular internal revenue leakage and pose very serious threat to the entire existence of local government. This calls for urgent attention to eradicate this unfortunate phenomenon in our body polity. We have strong conviction if all the suggestions we offered in this paper are strictly adhered to the issue of internal revenue leakage will disappear to a vanishing point. It is only then that we can bark of having the real impact local government.
