| dc.description.abstract | The legislature as First Estate of the realm represents citizens and sovereignty. It makes
the law, serve as checks on the activities of the executive (oversight) and represent the
citizens in constituencies. The responsibility of the Parliaments is to guarantee that
accountability and transparency of government activities are maintained in order to curb
misuse of public funds, corruption, while effecting good practices. It also scrutinizes the
nominees for top government positions by the executive arm while it ensures that the
requests sent by the executive are properly examined in order to avoid inefficiency and
non-performance. However, the paper relying on secondary research method and data
gathering discover that limited political will by legislators, inadequate funds,
deteriorating infrastructural facilities, pressure from the Executive, predominance of
inexperience legislators in the art of lawmaking and the tendency to place a higher
premium of personal and pecuniary interests at the expense of public interests are
antithetical to the effective legislative power of summons and appointment ratification in
the National Assembly. Therefore, the paper recommended that there is a need for
legislators to shun mediocrity and rise above pecuniary, sectional and party interests in
favour of the protection of democracy and its practices. | en_US |
