Senate President, Dr Bukola Saraki, has stressed the need for competent research and training institution to enable the legislature discharge its duties effectively.
He made the statement on Monday in Abuja in his opening remarks at the second matriculation ceremony of 99 students into the National Institute for Advanced Legal Studies (NIALS) and University of Benin (UNIBEN) postgraduate programme.
He said, “this event, with all of its traditions and ceremony, is a time to celebrate the Legislature and the National Institute for Legislative Studies.
“It is a time to renew our commitment to excellence in law making and the strengthening of democratic governance.
“The postgraduate programmes of the Institute seek to imbue staff of the National Assembly with the requisite skills needed to shape and direct national policy.
“ This is critical and indeed essential if legislators are to benefit from timely, digestible and accurate outputs,’’ he said.
Saraki said the programme presented legislators and other stakeholder’s unique and cost-effective opportunity to build their capacities in relevant areas without spending much time away from their work.
In his remarks, Speaker, House of Representatives, Yakubu Dogara declared that dearth of legislative aides with high-level technical capacity had hampered robust legislative debates in Nigeria,
He said that for legislators to perform their representative, legislative and oversight functions effectively, they ought to be adequately equipped to plan their work schedule.
He said that the legislative arm of government required increased resource competence to keep the government accountable for its actions.
He said that the work of legislators are often enabled by institutional structures and support provided by the legislature.
“Key in this regard is the quality and numbers of administrative and parliamentary personnel.
“Like most of the emerging parliaments in Africa, the National Assembly requires better equipped and resourced aides with the requisite competences and expertise in order to compete favourably with parliaments in established democracies.
“ In Nigeria, the legislature needs reliable information to understand the choices, decisions and policies of the executive branch,’’ he said.
Dogara commended NILS and UNIBEN for the initiative to undertake courses and programmes leading to the matriculation, adding that it was major contribution to democracy and legislative practice in Nigeria.
The speaker noted that the programme organised by the institutions, had risen against all odds to meet the challenge of providing postgraduate training for legislators and staff of national and state assemblies.
He called on those interested in improving their institutional performance to take advantage of the programme to strengthen their capacities and improve their competence.
The Director-General, NILS, Dr Ladi Hamalai, said that as part of the institute’s mandate, plans were in place to expand the programme to accommodate more students at different levels.
She said “we are trying to expand the certificate programmes of the institute. We are currently working to provide accreditation for Diploma programmes for staff of the National Assembly.
“In fact this institute is the first institution to be given at a go, both National Diploma (ND) and Higher National Diploma (HND) at the same time.
“We will also give opportunity to members of the executive arm of government and the private sector to participate in our postgraduate programme and later on, the ND and HND.’’
According to her, educating the executive on legislative matters will enable its staff understand the functions of the legislature.
Commenting on efforts at improving the quality of its programmes, the D-G said the institute was collaborating with relevant agencies abroad to ensure that students were adequately equipped.
She expressed appreciation to the National Assembly and other stakeholders for their support and contributions towards the actualisation of the programme.
Highpoint of the event was the award of fellowships of NIALS to former President of the Senate, Senator David Mark, Deputy President of the Senate, Ike Ekweremadu and four others.
