Opinion: The Legislators: Nigeria’s Costliest Underachievers

THE LEGISLATORS: NIGERIA’S COSTLIEST UNDERACHIEVERS

Sitting in Ornate Chambers, Adorned in Agbada, Wielding Gavel Without Substance

….young people campaigned for them, elders voted for them, the poor and unemployed believed in them but once elected, they vanish, their phones go off, their gates remain shut, their hearts harden, their conscience disappears, and when elections approach again, they return with wrappers, salt, cash, and slogans, only to repeat the cycle of betrayal.

By Comr. Preye V. Tambou,

27th July, 2025

One of Nigeria’s most devastating and overlooked problems is the quality, character, and performance of its Legislators across Federal, State, and Local levels. The Legislature has lost its moral compass. Instead of serving as a living voice of the people, it has become a monument to betrayal: richly funded, lavishly dressed, ceremoniously seated, and tragically empty. They sit in ornate chambers, adorned in traditional agbada, wielding gavels without substance and performing democracy without embodying its values.

While public anger is often directed at the President, Governors, Ministers and Commissioners, the true enablers of Nigeria’s dysfunction remain largely insulated behind legislative immunity and media-friendly protocols, sit comfortably in the Legislative Arms, shielded by constitutional authority but divorced from the people they swore to represent. These lawmakers were not just elected to make laws; they were entrusted to defend the people’s dignity, question the abuse of power, and provide oversight on those who govern instead, many have become accessories to impunity. The rot is not just visible in their inaction; it is evident in their priorities, silence, and disturbing detachment from the realities Nigerians live through daily.

The most painful contradictions is that the very institution created to defend the people has become a tool to suppress them. The legislature at all levels has mutated into an echo chamber of power, cold dissent, ignoring suffering, and glorifying the very systems it was meant to question. It has become one of the greatest stains on Nigeria’s democratic fabric, not because of the laws it failed to make, but because of the people it has failed to protect.

Over the years, the National Assembly has become a theatre of drama rather than a chamber of transformation. When fuel subsidies were removed without a comprehensive safety net, and inflation skyrocketed, there was no emergency legislative response to cushion the blow on citizens, instead, debates in the chambers were fixated on luxury SUVs for members and increased allocations for themselves. As Nigerians cried out under the weight of economic hardship, lawmakers quietly approved the most bloated national budget in recent history, laden with mysterious “constituency projects” and redundant agencies.

There was a time the 9th National Assembly proudly called itself the “rubber stamp assembly.” It was not an insult hurled from outside, but a badge of honour they embraced. That alone tells you how far the institution has strayed from its constitutional duty. These are lawmakers who, during national crises, go on recess without resolution. Who, during insecurity and mass killings, offer minutes of silence and then proceed with self-serving agendas. In 2021, when schoolchildren were being abducted regularly in the North, not a single legislator sponsored a comprehensive legislative blueprint to overhaul security architecture. No one initiated a bill to decentralize policing and to empower local security systems. They merely issued statements, posed for pictures with affected families, and returned to the comfort of Abuja.

The current National Assembly, especially its upper chamber, has become a stage for intimidation rather than inspiration. A disturbing pattern has emerged where any voice that dares to speak boldly, especially if it belongs to a woman, is met with coordinated ridicule, institutional bullying, and forced silence. The chamber that once symbolized representation now recoils at representation that challenges the status quo. This is not just legislative dysfunction but a calculated exclusion of conscience and courage. When a female voice rises with fire and conviction, demanding accountability and justice, the response is not engagement but aggression, not debate but demeaning remarks, not dialogue but disciplinary threats. The message is clear: conformity is rewarded, courage is punished.

What is playing out is not merely the oppression of an individual, but the suppression of the feminine force that dares to be bold in a patriarchal order. It reflects a wider disease across Nigeria’s legislative arms, where female legislators are expected to be ornaments, not forces; where strength in a woman is seen as rebellion, and rebellion is treated as a threat to male authority. From State Houses to Local Councils, women who step into political spaces with vision and backbone are boxed in, undermined, and often rendered invisible. This systemic silencing is not just gendered, it is generational. It is a message to every Nigerian with a spine: sit down, stay quiet, or be dealt with.

The decay is not only in the abuse of procedure but in the collapse of purpose. Across chambers, legislators no longer define themselves by the mandates they swore to uphold, but by the mandates they praise. Instead of crafting laws, they chant slogans. Instead of oversight, they offer ovation. Rather than standing with the people, they stand with power – cheering, singing, and echoing empty rhetoric that has no bearing on the daily agony of Nigerians. When lawmakers in plenary abandon legislative reasoning to shout political slogans like “on your mandate we stand,” the nation should shudder, not from fear, but from the realization that representation has died and sycophancy has taken its seat.

In State Houses of Assembly, the situation is even worse. Most State Legislatures have surrendered entirely to their Governors. They are not Arms of Government; they are extensions of the executive. In many States, Assemblies have become mere ceremonial halls where bills are passed without debate and budgets are approved in less than 48 hours without scrutiny, debate, and accountability. There is no oversight, questions asked, and resistance offered. The Governors are untouchable emperors, and the Lawmakers are their handpicked court jesters. The few who try to break ranks are isolated, suspended, or politically strangled.The Governors practically hand them scripts and they read them without edits. When Zamfara State lawmakers demanded millions of naira as “severance packages” in a State riddled with poverty, insecurity, and unpaid salaries, they demonstrated how detached they are from the suffering of their people.

At the Local level, Legislative Councils, where they exist in name, are practically invisible – phantom institutions without relevance and responsibility. Most Nigerians do not even know the names of their Local Government Councillors, not to talk of their functions. These are elected officials who should be closest to the grassroots, yet they are the most inaccessible. Their allegiance is not to the people, but to the Local Government Chairmen and political party structures that installed them. With zero legislative independence, they are either silent or co-opted, and in most cases, completely unqualified for the role they occupy. In most parts of the country, the people do not know who speaks for them, because nobody does. These Legislators exist in shadow, drawing public funds for private survival.

It is particularly disturbing that Legislators who should be the voice of the people have instead become defenders of the political elite. When protests erupt, when citizens are unlawfully detained, when hardship deepens, when corruption allegations surface, when unemployed youths and disadvantaged Nigerians lament, these lawmakers do not rally around justice. They retreat into silence and speak only when their interests are threatened. Their oversight function has become a bargaining chip, not a duty. Oversight visits are now a route to travel allowances and hotel stipends, not investigations that hold public officers accountable.

The tragedy is that many of these lawmakers were elected with the hopes of the people in their hands. Young people campaigned for them, elders voted for them, the poor and unemployed youths believed in them but once elected, they vanish after victory, reappear before re-election, and repeat the cycle without shame. Their phones go off, their gates remain shut, their hearts harden, their conscience disappears, and when elections approach again, they return with wrappers, salt, cash, and slogans, only to repeat the cycle of betrayal – offering breadcrumbs for four more years of silence.

This is no longer about governance but survival. The people are fighting to survive the consequences of legislative failure. The lawmakers, on the other hand, are surviving on the benefits of public wealth. This imbalance is unsustainable. The outrage in the streets is growing and if the legislature does not reform itself, it will be reformed by the people’s rising tide of rejection.

The sum of all this is a national embarrassment, a legislative culture that prioritizes loyalty over legitimacy, applause over accountability, and power over principle. We are witnessing the erosion of democracy by those elected to preserve it. The Legislative Arm, once envisioned as a check and balance, has instead become a weight dragging the nation backward. The cost of their silence is paid in blood by victims of insecurity. The price of their negligence is borne by children out of school. The reward for their betrayal is the suffering of the poor.

Again, this is no longer about bad governance but an active conspiracy against truth and transparency. The Legislature, instead of standing between the people and tyranny, now often stands shoulder to shoulder with it and until this trend is broken, until the voice of the people returns to the halls of legislation – Nigeria will remain a nation ruled by applause, not accountability.

Nigeria’s problem is not just leadership from the top; it is the collapse of legislative responsibility at every level. Until lawmakers start thinking like servants of the people rather than shareholders of the State, this country will remain a democracy only in name. Real progress will begin when the legislature stops being a sanctuary for the disconnected elite and becomes a battleground for ideas, accountability, justice, and development but for now, it remains one of the nation’s most expensive failures.