Stop excessive invitations, allow heads of MDAs do their jobs, Tinubu tells National Assembly

President Bola Tinubu has appealed to members of the national assembly to exercise restraint in inviting heads of ministries, departments and agencies (MDAs).

The president spoke on Wednesday while breaking the Ramadan fast with Tajudeen Abbas, speaker of the house of representatives, and other members of the leadership cadre of the lower legislative chamber.

Hardly a week passes at the national assembly without lawmakers summoning heads of government agencies.

In instances where government officials fail to appear, they are often threatened with warrants of arrest.

Tinubu said while oversight is essential for maintaining transparency and accountability in governance, the frequent summons of heads of government agencies can affect service delivery to the people.

“I have been watching various committees summoning ministers and heads of agencies,” the president said.

“I have complained to the speaker to let the poor breathe. Let these people do the job. We are not saying that you are not influential. We are not saying you cannot do your oversight.

“But consider the primary duty of each agency, its personnel, or the responsibilities of the governor of the central bank or the coordinating minister of the economy and minister of finance to you and the entire nation.

“If they are distracted or disturbed, maybe we will shift parliamentary sitting all through the night. We must find a way to accommodate one another.

“This is an appeal to you. See if you can accept representatives in some instances or even documentation.”

The president reiterated that he believes in the constitutional powers of the national assembly to uphold good governance through oversight responsibilities on the executive.

Tinubu asked the lawmakers to use the occasion of Ramadan to show compassion and support members of their constituencies.

“We are making sacrifices for the country, and we are assuring citizens that there is a very bright light at the end of the tunnel,” Tinubu said.

“We must have faith. And please do not forget your constituencies and remember what they are going through.

“I cannot thank you enough for what you are doing — but it is for our country. There is nothing personal about this. It is for Nigeria, and we have no other country but Nigeria.”

70% of inmates across prisons awaiting trial – NCoS

The Nigerian Correctional Service (NCoS) says 70 per cent of inmates in prison facilities are awaiting trial.
Haliru Nababa, controller-general of NCoS, said this on Wednesday when he appeared before an investigative hearing organised by the house of representatives joint committees on reformatory institutions, justice, police affairs, interior and human rights.

Nababa, who was represented by Tukur Ahmad, deputy controller general, training and staff development, said there is a need to decongest the prison facilities across the country.

The NCoS boss said prison congestion is due to the challenges in the criminal justice system in Nigeria.
He said the federal government is making an effort to cut costs of feeding the inmates which often runs into billions of naira annually.

“The NCoS maintains 265 custodial centres across the country, with the capacity of 64,192 against a total inmate population of 78,519 as of March 18, 2024,” Nababa said.

“Of this actual inmate population, 70 percent represents persons on awaiting trial.

“For us to speedily decongest our correctional centres in the country, we need the completion of the 3000 capacity new custodial centres that are built across the six geopolitical zones, and we need a lot of money for the service.”

Also speaking, Ahmed Abubakar, commandant general of the Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps (NSCDC), said one of the ways to decongest the prisons is for members of the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) who are serving as lawyers to help take up pretrial cases of inmates.

“We can see that we have many young men in prisons and we are requesting that these lawyers that are young — NYSC members — be compulsorily sent maybe to help look into cases that are pretrial cases so that we can decongest the prisons,” Abubakar, who was represented by Philip Ayuba, assistant commander-general, said.