Like an old car parked in the garage, nobody cares about propaganda politics anymore. It’s tires are now flat. It’s methods are now known and its inaccuracies are now easily decipherable with the quickest click of your smartphone. This is why throughout 2017, the Nigerian Senate, under the leadership of Dr. Abubakar Bukola Saraki, carefully worked to meet the demands of Nigeria’s ‘New Governance Order’ — an order that is defined by delivery and performance over orchestrated publicity, and effectiveness over obvious hype.
Looking Back at 2017, we all remember that the year started off with the budget. Talks about #OpenNASS accompanied the conversation about the 2017 appropriations bill — and commentators across the social-media-sphere all had a thing or two to say about the alleged secrecy behind the National Assembly’s annual spending.
Right now, many people still do not know that the PIGB passed by the Senate in 2017 is aimed at unbundling the Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) for better performance, creating a sustainable framework for the effective governance of Nigeria’s petroleum industry, and putting an end to the issues that cause fuel scarcity across the country.
The impact of both ‘Access to Credit’ Bills passed by the Senate, and the National Assembly as a whole, were brought to the fore when in September 2017, the Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria announced that due to the access to credit legislation — which began in the Senate, 20,684 movable assets valued at N392 billion had already been registered on the National Collateral Register (NCR). Similarly, in October 2017, the World Bank rated Nigeria among the top 10 most improved economies in its 2016/2017 Doing Business Report. All of this was due to the fact that the Senate had focused on creating more opportunities for MSMEs in Nigeria through well-crafted legislation.