Rt. Honourable Yakubu Dogara, who was the former Speaker of House of Representatives from 2015 _ 2019, has urged state assembly lawmakers to salvage the country’s democracy from recession.
The former Speaker who represented Bogoro, Tafawa Balewa and Dass Federal Constituency, Bauchi State, made the appeal while speaking at a 1-day Technical Session for Speakers of State Houses of Assembly organized by PERL-ECP in collaboration with the Conference of Speakers at Transcorp Hilton, Abuja recently.
Speaking on the topic, ‘Effective Leadership for Emerging Legislatures: Lessons, Challenges, Opportunities and Recommendations, the former speaker prayed that the lawmakers will find courage to take up their places as the guard rails of Nigeria’s democracy in order to salvage it which according to him, is said to be in recession at the moment.
“Always remember the saying that, “liberty is as rare as it is fragile, wedged uneasily between tyranny and anarchy”. You must never allow the executive to drop an elbow on our democracy’s throat”, he said.
Dogara further said, “Until you make the legislature grow in strength in relation to the executive and other parties, history will not be kind to you”
“For you to be said to be an effective leader, obstacles that deter others must spur you on”, Dogara asserted.
Yakubu Dogara charged the state assembly members to, irrespective of how they emerged, spare no effort in checking the executive’s excesses and holding the executive to account.
