LEGISLATIVE EFFECTIVENESS AND DEVELOPMENT IN NIGERIA (A CASE STUDY OF LAGOS STATE HOUSE OF ASSEMBLY)
CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY
Since Nigeria returned to democratic system of government in 1999 after years of military dictatorship, the operations of the legislature have often been in the spotlight for several reasons. Expectedly, the question of the cost of maintaining the two chambers of the National Assembly where there are 109 Senators and 360 House of Representatives members has oen
overshadowed other critical issues such as the assessment of the effectiveness of the legislators towards the development of the country. Specifically, the perceived high remuneration of the Nigerian lawmakers which is believed to be enormous even when compared to the earnings of lawmakers in other advanced democracies is often a matter of debate. However, this study deviates from this path and focuses on providing an insight into the performance of the legislature as regards national development. Particularly, the emphasis is to examine the effectiveness of the individual legislators with a view to shedding light on their ability to provide appropriate representation for their respective constituencies in particular and the nation in general.
Democracy is all about ensuring popular participation and control of the process of government with the role purpose of improving the lives of the populace. Since all the people cannot participate and individually control their government at the same time, they entrust these rights and duties to an elected few among them known as legislators. The legislature is one of the basic structures of any political system. It is known by a variety of names in different countries.
Some states identify their legislature as Congress, Parliament, Duma or Knesset. Others designate it as Soviet, Diet, Assembly, etc (Laxmikanth, 2006). The legislature is ubiquitous in every system of government to perform legislative functions. The law making process is an interesting chain of activities, which involves passing of motions into resolutions and bills into laws which depending on certain circumstances contribute in one way or the other to national development.
