Niger Top News

Limits Of Legislative Licence

OUR legislators have their ways with matters Nigerians consider weighty. Since we are not legislators, rigours that resulted in the passage of 46 bills in 10 minutes, a record unlikely to be contested elsewhere, could be lost on us.

 The record is more than what bewildered us. Senator Ita Enang, Chairman of the Senate Committee on Rules and Business, the important committee that decides which bills qualify for the Senate’s attention, said on television that the Senate passed more bills in 10 minutes than the 46 the public know.

 The bills took a bow, a practice the Senate uses when it does not want to scrutinise candidates who appear before it. According to Enang, the Senate could adopt any rules for its works. Why the haste in passing 46 bills in less time than it takes the Senate to introduce the day’s business? How did the Senate spend the past four years that it ran out of time for its major role of legislating? What are the implications of the Senate making laws its members did not know the content?