By Femi Ogunshola
Speaker of the House of Representatives, Hon. Tajudeen Abbas, says the 10th Assembly is committed to responding to the yearnings and aspirations of Nigerians.
The speaker said this at a roundtable with development partners of the National Assembly in Abuja.
Representatives of the development partners are: Policy and Legal Advocacy Centre, Department for International Development and the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office.
Others are: Konrad Adenauer Stiftung, United Nations Development Programme and Order Paper.
He said as the representatives of the people, institution building remained the gateway to professionalism, efficiency and productivity.
Abbas said he would ensure that the 10th House of Representatives responded to the yearnings and expectations of the citizenry.
He noted that the legislators had been called to serve at the most critical period in the nation’s political history.
He said only a committed legislature, which was properly equipped would be able to deliver service to meet the expectations of the people.
According to him, one of his cardinal policy thrusts, on assumption of office as speaker, is capacity development for members and staff of the house.
“This has become more imperative following the high turnover rate of the 10th House of Representatives where we have over 200 new members with hundreds of legislative aides.
“This number of members and aides requires improved capacity to cope with the offices’ demands,” the speaker said.
He added that institutional capacity development was considered as one of the priority components of the legislative agenda of the house.
Representatives of the development partners in their remarks, expressed readiness to offer more technical assistance to the National Assembly in various thematic areas.
These, according to them, include electoral laws, legislative processes and law-making, training as well as capacity building.
The partners also suggested that a technical session be organised for all stakeholders to deliberate and come up with a policy document on how they will assist.
This, according to them, will be in the area of design and implementation of the 10th legislative agenda. (NAN)
