Former Speaker of the House of Representatives, Honourable Yakubu Dogara, has urged the new leaders in national and state assemblies to check their respective executives’ excesses and hold them accountable.
In a statement by his spokesman, Turaki Hassan Adamu, in Bauchi State over the weekend, after Dogara presented a paper at a one-day “Technical Session for Speakers of State Houses of Assembly” in Abuja.
The lawmaker pointed out that to end the constant harassment of the legislature by the executive members, the legislative arm of government should copy a model in the U.S. by creating the office of “Independent Counsel” at both the national and sub-national levels.
Dogara also stated that Nigeria is a monarchy system of government, not a democracy.
He said recently the executive had raised trillions of naira without authorization from the legislative, noting that such acts violate the express provisions of Section 38 of the CBN Act of 2007 as amended.
Dogara further stressed that:
“In the days when the powers of the legislature were in the ascendancy, such a request from the executive would be declared dead on arrival.
“The parliament was in a quandary of monumental propositions because even if it had amended the CBN Act like it was subsequently done in one fell swoop, such a measure cannot confer legality on violations of the laws that had taken place before the amendment.”
