The Speaker of the House of Representatives Rt. Hon. Abbas Tajudeen, Ph.D., GCON, has urged Nigerians to be active participants in the country’s democracy, including appreciating and showing interest in the parliamentary activities of the National Assembly.

Draw closer to NASS, know how legislature works, Speaker Abbas urges Nigerians

…says parliament welcomes constructive criticism

…as House considers 2,747 bills in three years, breaks record

The Speaker of the House of Representatives Rt. Hon. Abbas Tajudeen, Ph.D., GCON, has urged Nigerians to be active participants in the country’s democracy, including appreciating and showing interest in the parliamentary activities of the National Assembly.

Speaker Abbas made the appeal while declaring open NASS Open Week 2026 and the presentation of the Third-Year Scorecard/performance review of the House in the chambers on Tuesday.

The three-day ceremony packed with a series of activities and events is themed, ‘Three Years of the 10th Assembly: Advancing Transparency, Incision, and Reform.’

The President of the Senate, Distinguished Senator Godswill Akpabio, GCON, declared the Open Week open.

Speaker Abbas said, “My appeal to the citizen who observes us today is therefore a simple one: draw closer. Acquaint yourself with the true workings of your parliament. Read a bill before you pass judgment upon it. Submit your memoranda when we call for them. We take your submissions seriously and consider your input in amending laws. It is for this reason that our young people will gather this week to confront the scourge of disinformation and to lay claim to their voice ahead of 2027.

“A democracy is made strong not by those who applaud it from a distance, but by those who step forward and take part. Open Week is the hand this House extends. I ask you to take it.”

The Speaker noted that the House welcomes constructive criticism, which he said is critical to good law-making. He, however, urged citizens to study bills and other legislation before criticising them.

He said, “You have just been presented with the full scorecard. Permit me to draw out a few figures, for figures do not flatter. The citizens of this nation submitted 2,747 bills to this House. Of these, we passed 363, and 72 have already received presidential assent and become law.

“These are not lines upon a page; they are measurable and lasting change. These figures represent the highest for any Assembly since 1999.”

He added, “One of those laws now offers our young people interest-free student loans, so that no Nigerian student is turned away from a lecture hall for want of means. Another has reformed how the nation raises and shares its revenue. Others have created commissions to carry development into every region of the Federation.

“The landmark statutes are only part of our work: more than 800 citizens have petitioned this House, and we have already brought hundreds of those matters to resolution. That, in my estimation, is this House at its most faithful.

“Where we have served the nation well, the scorecard records it. Where we have fallen short, it records that also.”

The Speaker, however, urged lawmakers to lift their gaze beyond the records, towards the purpose that animates them. “The ultimate aim of this House was never to pass the greatest number of laws. It was to help build a Nigeria in which a child in the remotest village may expect the same protection of the law, the same access to learning, and the same measure of dignity as a child born to privilege in our cities,” he noted.

Speaker Abbas added that “every reform we have supported, every budget we have refined, and every oversight duty we have discharged is a single brick laid toward that one enduring edifice.”

While noting that “we have not yet arrived,” Speaker Abbas said the lawmakers “stand closer than we did three years ago.” He stated, “The foundation is deeper, and the will of this House is firmer. In the final reckoning, the difficult choices of these years are bending, steadily and surely, toward the good of the Nigerian people. That is the conviction that keeps us at our posts and the promise this Parliament renews before you this day.”

Speaker Abbas recalled that at the inauguration of the House in 2023, the parliament asked to be “measured against our own promises, and we meant it.”

While noting that the Open Week is “designed not as a lecture but as a national conversation,” the Speaker said a place has been reserved for the citizens at every table.

Speaker Abbas also recalled how President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, GCFR, asked Nigerians to “accept a difficult but necessary course of reforms.” He added that the administration’s reforms “were not modest adjustments; they reached into the very foundations of our economy, into how it is financed, how our currency is valued, and how our common revenue is shared and invested in our people.”

The Speaker stressed that reforms of such magnitude demand much of a nation, and still more of the institutions charged with carrying them.

“This is where the record of these three years becomes a record of partnership. Every policy of the Executive still had to become law, to pass through appropriation, and to withstand legislative scrutiny. That is the indispensable work this House has performed.

“We laid the legal foundation for the tax reforms that will render our revenue fairer for generations to come. We enacted budgets directing resources toward infrastructure, toward power, and toward the human capital upon which all else depends.

“We gave statutory force to the reform of student financing. The President furnished the vision; the National Assembly furnished the laws that render the vision enforceable. That is the true measure of legislative support, and it is worth far more than applause.”

Speaking on the kidnap of pupils, students, and teachers by terrorists in Oyo State and their eventual rescue by security forces, Speaker Abbas stated that “nothing tests a government, or a parliament, so severely as the safety of the citizen.”

While declaring that “our security forces are gaining ground,” the Speaker stated that the government “will not rest until every Nigerian is safe.” He said, “Consider one event from only days ago that shows the courage of men and women who refuse to tire, retreat, or accept defeat.”

While saying that the nation owes security officers who died on the rescue mission “a debt that words can never fully discharge,” the Speaker stated that rescue was not the “product of chance,” but the “fruit of every appropriation this House has fought to place in the hands of those who protect our children.”

He added, “Yet the deeper lesson of Oyo is that a nation of this magnitude cannot be policed in perpetuity from a single command in Abuja. On this question, this House has already acted. In the course of the constitutional reform ably led by our Deputy Speaker, this House passed a State Police Bill and placed the matter squarely before the nation. Tomorrow’s roundtable carries that work forward, in the open and before you.

“I am, indeed, able to share a development that speaks to the seriousness with which this administration regards the safety of Nigerians. His Excellency the President has now transmitted to the National Assembly an Executive version of the State Police Bill, one that is more robust and more comprehensive than the version this House earlier passed.”

Speaker Abbas described the police bill as “the product of a dedicated committee” inaugurated by President Tinubu and chaired by former Speaker of the House/Chief of Staff to the President, Rt. Hon. Femi Gbajabiamila.

He said, “I commend both the President for the diligence and the personal commitment he has brought to this cause. Mr. President, this is leadership of the first order, and the nation is grateful for it. The House will therefore recall the version it earlier passed, and accord the Executive Bill the expedited consideration that a matter of this urgency deserves.”

The Speaker acknowledged the technical partnerships and cooperation from the National Assembly Library Trust Fund (NALTF); Policy and Legal Advocacy Centre (PLAC); Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO); the European Union (EU); YIAGA Africa, International IDEA, Nigerian Economic Summit Group (NESG); and the Friedrich Ebert Stiftung. “Your confidence in this institution is a trust we do not hold lightly,” he said.

Speaker Abbas also paid tribute to the Senate under the “wise and steady” leadership of the President of the Senate, Senator Godswill Akpabio, GCON, saying, “The Red Chamber has proved a true partner in every national task we have undertaken.”

The opening ceremony of the 2026 National Assembly Open Week was attended
by dignitaries including the Chief of Staff to the President and former Speaker, Rt. Hon. Femi Gbajabiamila, CFR; Minister of Health, Prof. Mohammed Ali Pate; Deputy Governor of Rivers State, Mrs. Ngozi Nma Odu; former speakers, Aminu Bello Masari, Patricia Etteh, and Yakubu Dogara; former deputy speakers, Bayero Nafada, Emeka Ihedioha, and Babangida Nguroje; Emir of Zazzau, His Royal Highness, Amb. Ahmad Nuhu Bamalli.

Others were the British High Commissioner to Nigeria, Richard Montgomery; the European Union Ambassador to Nigeria and ECOWAS, Amb. Gautier Mignot; the Executive Secretary of the National Assembly Library Trust Fund, Hon. Henry Nwawuba; Executive Director of PLAC, Mr. Clement Nwankwo; representatives of development partners such as the International IDEA, Yiaga Africa, FCDO, Friedrich Ebert Stiftung, and the Nigerian Economic Summit Group, among many others.