Three weeks into the military operation of the Joint Task Force in the Niger Delta, President Umaru Yar’Adua is yet to officially inform the National Assembly about the military action going on in the oil rich region, the senate majority leader, Teslim Folarin, said at the weekend.
Mr. Folarin told journalists gathered at the Millennium Press Centre of the Nigeria Union of Journalists, Oyo State chapter, Ibadan, where he was a guest lecturer, that his colleagues and himself in the National Assembly only know about the military action through the newspapers.
The senate leader said Mr. Yar’Adua was yet to formally write the National Assembly about the development.
He, however, said the Niger-Delta issue is sensitive and the protracted crisis there has remained a major challenge for the government, which should be handled carefully. The challenge before the government and the nation, he said, was how to tackle the ‘criminal activities’ of the militants and the genuine long standing problem of development in the region.
Creeping criminality
“Criminality has crept into the struggle. And so you have to separate the two and treat them separately,” he said
Mr. Folarin, in his lecture, entitled “The National Assembly In Ten Years of Democracy”, said the nation’s legislative body did its best to discharge its duties and responsibilities to the nation in the last ten years.
“Basically, the functions of any legislature are making new laws, amending existing laws and repealing those considered obnoxious, irrelevant and inconsistent with the interest of the people. To a large extent, the National Assembly has been discharging this responsibility, though the processes of achieving these objectives are time-consuming and cumbersome,” he said.
On state creation, the senate leader said Nigerians would have to exercise more patience as the existing law on the matter makes the exercise difficult under a democracy. He, however, urged Nigerians to give the National Assembly more time to address all legislative questions bothering their minds as the nation celebrates ten years of unbroken civil rule.