Former President Goodluck Jonathan has called on the legislature to act decisively and with autonomy.
Jonathan stated this while hailing past sessions of Nigeria’s National Assembly for their independence and courage in standing up to presidential authority by overriding vetoes on key legislation.
The ex-president, while speaking at the Champions of Nigerian Content Awards Dinner hosted by the Nigerian Content Development and Monitoring Board in Yenagoa, Bayelsa State, reflected on the era when the legislature acted decisively and with autonomy.
The ex-President, who received the Nigerian Content Lifetime Achievement Award at the event, recalled his experience as Acting President in 2010 when he signed the Nigerian Oil and Gas Industry Content Development Bill into law.
Jonathan described the bill, championed by Senator Lee Maeba of Rivers State and others, as a product of a dynamic legislature.
“When I was acting President in 2010, and the National Assembly presented the bill, I promptly signed it and we quickly established a monitoring body.
“Someone like Lee Maeba, the bill’s originator, and his group also deserve recognition. That was a period when the National Assembly truly lived up to its name,”;; Jonathan said.
He equally cited the passage of the Niger Delta Development Commission, NDDC, Act in 2000 as a defining moment of legislative independence, recalling how the National Assembly overrode then-President Olusegun Obasanjo’s refusal to assent to the bill.
