The Role of Legislative Committees in enhancing Legislative Performance in Nigeria: A Study of the House of Representatives

Abstract

The study was designed to investigate the role of legislative committees in enhancing effective legislative performance in Nigeria, focusing on the House of Representatives. The objectives of the study were to; identify the role of legislative committees in the National Assembly, assess the performance of legislative committees in the legislative process, identify the challenges militating against the effectiveness of committees in the National Assembly, and proffer solutions to the challenges militating against the effectiveness of committees of the National Assembly. The study adopted the mixed research design using quantitative as well as qualitative methods of data collection. The purposive sampling technique was used to select the respondents that provided primary data, while secondary data was taken from published materials. The Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS 16.0) was used to analyse quantitative data, while the content analysis was employed in analysing qualitative data. The analysis revealed that the roles of legislative committees is crucial for the effectiveness of the House of Representatives, hence, respondents noted their respective committee functions to include bill scrutiny, oversight, consideration of public petition, identifying issues suitable for legislative review, among others. The study showed that the challenges confronting legislative committees, ditto House of Representatives Committees on Tertiary Education and Services, and Defence includes: lack of fund for committees’ activities, lack of cooperation from MDAs, ineffectiveness of committees’ leadership, low motivation of committees’ staff, etc. To improve the effectiveness of committees in the House of Representatives, the study suggested provision of fund for committees’ activities. It also proffered solutions like selection of committees’ leadership based on expertise, training and retraining of members of committees’ secretariat, improved relationship with MDAs, etc.