It may be safe to say that Akpabio has been busy being a Senate President and paying less attention to a key aspect of legislative duties.
It may seem as though Godswill Akpabio’s tenure has been busy with more controversies than actual legislative duties. It could also be safe to say that he has been rather busy being a senate president and paying less attention to a key aspect of legislative duties.
Akpabio, who is not only one of the senators representing Akwa Ibom state, doubles as the President of the 10th Senate. In that capacity, he superintends over the National Assembly besides presiding at senate plenary. As the number three citizen of the country, in order of national protocol, he gets to be busy also with state duties sometimes assigned by the president of the country rightly or wrongly.
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Being one of the very few politicians to have continuously held a combination of appointive and elective office in Nigeria including being a commissioner, governor, minister and a senator in 2015 where he served as minority leader, one would expect that with these levels of experience, a greater performance in terms of lawmaking will be seen but that does not seem to be the case.
Based on a detailed analysis done by OrderPaper on the performance of lawmakers in the first year of the 10th NASS, Akpabio sponsored only 2 bills under the education sector both of which are still at its first reading stage.
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The two other senators from the state, Etim Bassey and Ekong Akpan sponsored 3 and 2 bills respetively, all of which are at first reading stage.
In the period under review, the Akwa Ibom members in the House of Representatives recorded a total of 30 bills of which majority are also stuck at the first reading stage.
The only members who have their bills with a some progress are Rep Unyime Idem with 4 bills (75 percent of which are awaiting 2nd reading and 25 percent await committee consideration) and Rep Etteh Ikpong who has 2 bills awaiting reporting from committee.
STAR Check: Find out more about all Akwa Ibom State lawmakers in the National Assembly here.
10th NASS Report Card: Read up on the performance scorecards of other senators, members of the house and specialised categories here.