An assessment of the performance of rules and business committee in the 9TH House of Representatives (2019 – 2023)
Thesis
The House Committee on Rules and Business is an engine room of the House of Representatives. It ensures the smooth conduct of the business of the House in the law making process in compliance with the provisions of Order 1(1) of the Standing Orders of the 9th House of Representatives. Despite the relative importance of the Committee, some factors such as inadequate funding, shortage of technical expertise, leadership challenges, lack of office space as well as the limitations of the Committee by the Provisions of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, 1999 (as altered) amongst others affected the committee’s performance. As a result, the research assessed the performance of the 9th House of Representatives Committee on Rules and Business in order to ascertain the level of performance in the process of lawmaking in Nigeria’s 9th House of Representatives in accordance to its statutory roles as mandated in the Standing Orders of the House. The second specific objective of this research is to ascertain the level of compliance of the Committee to the provisions of the Standing Orders of the House and thirdly to identify the challenges faced by the Committee in the course of performing its roles as mandated by the Standing Orders and the Constitution. This study adopted the mixed research design using quantitative and qualitative data. The target population of this research was 100 and purpose sampling procedure which emphasizes the choice of respondents based on set criteria was adopted for the selection of respondents from the sample size of 100 and 8 for the administration of the questionnaire and conduct of the key informant interviews respectively. Data were taken from primary (questionnaire) and secondary (that is, House Committee on Rules and Business (2019-2023) journals, Reports and magazines, internet, etc.) sources. Content analysis was used in analyzing qualitative data while descriptive statistics were adopted to analyze quantitative data. Quantitative data were presented in tables whereas qualitative data were outlined in essay format. This study found that the criteria of performance of legislative role of the House Committee on Rules and Business was provided for in the Standing Orders of the House of Representatives, (Order 20(Rule 3 (2) backed by the provisions of the constitution in Section 62, CFRN 1999 (as altered) for the powers of the National Assembly to appoint and regulate its committees through resolutions and the jurisdiction of the Committee is also clearly outlined.). Therefore, a measure of the level of the performance of the legislative mandate of the Committee is through the number of Bills scrutinized, processed and passed, Motions, Petitions and Resolutions passed. Overall, this study concludes that the House Committee on Rules and Business was central in the operations of the House of Representatives of the Federal Republic of Nigeria and enhanced the prospects of good governance. Without doubt, the House Committee on Rules and Business was among the special committees of the House inaugurated, thirty days (30 days) after the proclamation of the Assembly at the beginning of a new session of the legislature, complied with the mandates provided in the Standing Orders of the House. This special committees had a critical role of ensuring that the Legislative activities for the new session does not suffer setbacks that will hinder legislation for good governance.