Nigeria’s Senate President, Ahmad Lawan says the current legislative arm of government is not a rubber stamp National Assembly.
Critics of the current legislature have said that they seem to only be doing the will of President Muhammadu Buhari and the All Progressives Congress, APC, rather than working for the Nigerian people.
Lawan however, stated that that the two arms of government are working in tandem to see that the dividends of democracy are duly provided for the Nigerian people.
The Senate President was speaking at the commissioning of New Evans Ewerem Way in Imo State, where he was the Guest Speaker.
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“We in the National Assembly have been working with the veto arm of the government, so far, so good. We do so consciously, we do so purposefully, we do so patriotically because we believe that both arms of government are voted in to serve the people.
“And where we will have to disagree with the veto arm of government, we’ll do so. We have done so before and if it becomes necessary to do so, we will do it again,” he said.
“But where we have no cause to differ, where we have no cause to say ‘No!’ we will not differ and we will not say no because that is what will serve the people of this country.
“We don’t care if the opposition will say ‘this rubber stamp assembly,’ you had an assembly that never saw anything good in working together, what did the people get, nothing.
“As a person, as the chairman of the National Assembly, as the president of the Senate, I don’t care if you say what we do is rubber stamp but you know inside you, inside your heart, that we are not Rubber stamp; we are there to make sure that the people of this country get the best deal from the government that they vote in,” the Senate President said.
On issue of insecurity in the country, Lawan advocated increase funding for security agencies to procure adequate technologies needed to combat crime in line with global best practice.