Former minister of education, Oby Ezekwesili, has berated Nigerian lawmakers for their “inability” to hold the executive accountable.
Describing them as “lemons”, she said neither the Senate President Bukola Saraki nor Yakubu Dogara has invested in public trust.
In a series of tweets on Tuesday, the former minister blamed the low public trust experienced in the country on the quality of the lawmakers at the national assembly.
“Public trust was always pretty low in our society cos of our checkered experience with military governments,” she wrote.
“The reason we continue after eighteen years of uninterrupted democracy to have low public trust in our society is because of quality of legislature.
“If we ever manage to improve the quality of those that constitute our legislature — national assembly — @HouseNGR & @NGRSenate public trust rises.
“Terrible that neither speaker @YakubuDogara nor senate president @BukolaSaraki have invested in building public trust through legislature integrity.”
The former vice-president, World Bank (Africa region), said it was tragic that “maybe a few citizens” take the lawmakers serious on any of their hearings on scandals.
She said ordinarily, citizens should hold their legislature in high regard “and therefore have high public trust in government — but we don’t.”
“For as long as individual and institutional integrity of national assembly remains poor in citizens’ rating, executive scandals will soar. Sad.
“To build up our public trust, we direly need a legislature — national assembly that is trusted by citizens to hold executive accountable.
“When executive infractions that our national assembly could have handled with public support keep piling up scandal after scandal, it is tragic,” she added.
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