The 9th House of Representatives was inaugurated on 11 June 2019 for a period of four years.
Immediately after inauguration, the House, under the leadership of the Speaker, Mr. Femi Gbajabiamila designed a legislative agenda with inputs from stakeholders, to articulate its policy goals, development ambitions and priorities.
A special committee was set to accomplish this task, out of which emerged an ambitious agenda that cut across fifteen policy areas beginning with the reform of the house.
Areas of intervention in the legislature include national budget reform, national security, economic reform and public health amongst others.
The return of the January to December budget circle became the greatest achievement of the legislative agenda.
This in the words of the Speaker, “enabled the House to initiate and pass some of the most ground-breaking legislations in the history of the legislature in Nigeria.
Some of the legislations include the electoral Act amendment bill, the police service commission Act, the electric power sector reform Act amendment bill as well as several bills passed to reform the aviation sector amongst others.
In the period under review, the House had intervened in labour disputes that have assisted greatly in resolving disputes between unions and the government, especially the dispute between the National Association of Resident Doctors as well as the faceoff between the Academic Staff Union of Universities, ASUU and the federal government.
Strained relationship between the executive and the legislature used to be the order of the day in the past.
Experts agreed that the cordial relationship between the 9th House and the Executive contributed greatly to the achievements recorded by both the Buhari led administration and the legislature.
The role of Clerks in achieving this feat cannot be ignored as they are regarded as the engine room of any parliament.
With the 9th House now on the final lap of its tenure, the general call now from various stakeholders is for it to revisit and fine-tune the electoral Act, considering some of the challenges faced during the just concluded 2023 general elections.
Writing by Ibrahim Shehu; Editing by Annabel Nwachukwu