Abubakar Malami. Attorney General of the Federal republic of Nigeria on Thursday met with the leadership of the National Assembly on developing a working relationship that would ensure seamless passage of bills.
Malami, for about an hour at the National Assembly, met with the President of the Senate, Ahmad Lawan; Speaker of the House of Representatives, Rt. Hon. Femi Gbajabiamila and some principal officers of the Senate.
Malami who expressed concerns of the delay in the passage of bill as experienced in the eighth National and that such bills were most times never passed nor assented to because of certain inadequacies or constitutional issues.”
Malami further stated that the major issue of interest to the Office of the Attorney General and the Government is having a harmonious working relationship that is targeted at advancing the interest of the nation.
His statement read:
“Enormous resources, energy and cost have gone into legislative process of lawmaking, and I feel the time is now right for us to work together for the purpose of eliminating the associated bottlenecks that have constituted hindrances to the passage of the bills and assenting thereto.
“My beneficial approach is to look at the possibility of working together between the executive and legislature; and where the need arises, the judiciary, in working on the bills before they proceed to the stages of public hearing.
“We cannot afford to expend resources, time and energy in formulating and drafting bills that will eventually not be passed or assented,” Malami said.
As a way forward, Malami suggested sending advance legislative proposals for possible review and inputs of the lawmakers even before the final consideration of the draft bill by the executive.
The Senate President in a response described the meeting as an “historic engagement” and commended the approach of the Executive.
“Our relationship should be based on mutual respect and consultation. This is a clear demonstration of the kind of consultation we have been talking about.
“We shouldn’t work at cross purposes; and beyond bills, we need to extend the consultation to other spheres of engagements for us to achieve optimal performance,” Lawan said.
“This shows the kind of relationship that characterise the ninth National Assembly and the Executive arm of government, which essentially is for the benefit of Nigerians, the people we represent,” Lawan added.
Those in attendance of the meeting includes: the Senate Leader, Yahaya Abdullahi; Deputy Minority Leader, Ajayi Boroffice; Deputy Chief Whip, Aliyu Sabi Abdullahi; Deputy Minority Leader, Emmanuel Bwacha; Deputy Minority Whip, Sahabi Ya’u Alhaji; Senator Albert Bassey (PDP, Akwa-Ibom North), and Senator James Manager (PDP, Delta South).
