President Bola Tinubu has advised the National Assembly to allow the heads of ministries, departments and agencies (MDAs) to concentrate on their jobs and avoid summoning them unnecessarily.
Tinubu made this observation while breaking Ramadan fast with the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Tajudeen Abbas in Abuja on Wednesday.
The President noted that while oversight of MDAs was a job function of the National Assembly, the frequency of summons on all manner of issues was starting to cause distractions for the heads of the MDAs.
He said he was appealing to the Speaker to accept the appearance of subordinates and submission of documents to clarify issues, instead of always summoning the heads of MDAs.
Here is an excerpt of his message to the Speaker:
Let these people do the job. We are not saying that you are not influential. We are not saying you cannot do your oversight.
“But consider the primary duty of each agency, its personnel, or the responsibilities of the governor of the central bank or the coordinating minister of the economy and minister of finance to you and the entire nation.
If they are distracted or disturbed, maybe we will shift parliamentary sitting all through the night. We must find a way to accommodate one another.“
On an almost weekly basis, Television screens in Nigeria are filled with one committee or another from the National Assembly summoning heads of MDAs to come for clarification and explanations. Most times, the heads of such MDAs are threatened with arrest, if they fail to comply.
Many observers believe the committees though empowered by law to perform oversight, sometimes go overboard and become too dramatic.
