OrderPaper Nigeria receives accolades from Plateau lawmaker, Dachung Musa Bagos for its commitment to legislative accountability and ensuring lawmakers prioritise the core function of lawmaking in service delivery
READ ALSO: MVP Hall of Fame: 20 National Assembly Members make Semi-Final shortlist
Ahead of the induction of lawmakers into the country’s first-ever Most Valuable Parliamentarian (MVP) Hall of Fame, OrderPaper Nigeria, the lead organiser of the initiative, has continued to receive praise for its work in the legislative space.
Hon Dachung Musa Bagos, representing Jos East/Jos South Federal Constituency in the House of Representatives, is the latest to speak on OrderPaper’s work as the country’s premier and pre-eminent policy think-tank and legislative interface, bridging the gap between people and parliament.
Rep. Bagos disclosed this in Abuja on Wednesday at a Dialogue of the Nigeria Network of Parliamentary Monitoring Organisations (PMOs), which is responsible for implementing the Promoting Open Parliament for Upscaling Legislative Accountability (POPULA) Project.
Commending OrderPaper Nigeria for putting lawmakers on their toes in terms of bills analysis and annual appraisal of lawmakers, he said: “We will be with you at any point in the life of the 10th National Assembly. OrderPaper has kept members of the National Assembly on their toes, with your analysis and views. What keeps us as a guide in the National Assembly is the OrderPaper.”
READ ALSO: 2023: OrderPaper unveils signature, National Assembly Performance Scorecards
Speaking on public perception of the National Assembly as an institution, the lawmaker faulted the persistent outcry over the huge funds spent by the federal parliament without looking at its impact on national life while emphasising that democracy is the most expensive form of government.
“People are advocating for the scrapping of the House of Representatives or the Senate by looking at only the quantum of funds been spent to maintain the institution. Forgetting that the democracy is the most expensive form of governance. So there is a need to look at the Impact of the National Assembly,” he remarked. He also called on Nigerians to brace up for robust legislative representation in the soon-to-be-inaugurated 10th National Assembly.
Regina Udo, a Senior Programme Executive at OrderPaper Advocacy Initiative (OAI) who also made a presentation at the event, noted that the core mandate of OrderPaper is to bridge the gap between people and parliament, highlighting its key initiatives of Annual Appraisals for the 469 members of the National Assembly and use of legislative accountability champions at the grassroots.
“We do that through creating legislative content and the Active Citizens Engaging the Legislature (LEG’ACEs) Initiative. Indeed, we have at least one Legislative ACE representing us in the 360 Federal Constituencies and the 109 Senatorial Districts by extension,” she noted.
READ ALSO: OrderPaper Nigeria: 22 Moments and Milestones of 2022
On Friday, 7th April 2023, OrderPaper Nigeria and its partners in a statement released in Abuja, announced twenty members of the Ninth National Assembly as Semi-Finalists for the country’s first-ever Most Valuable Parliamentarian (MVP) Hall of Fame.
The MVP Hall of Fame initiative in furtherance of OrderPaper‘s contributions to legislative strengthening and promotion of improved service delivery in the National Assembly, aims at identifying and sustaining a distinct class of legislators who are performance-driven, excellence-inspired, and public-spirited.
According to the organisation, the shortlist comprising a female Senator, two Principal Officers, two Presiding Officers and ten first-term lawmakers across party lines from both the Senate and House of Representatives and would be subjected to a rigorous points-based scoring system to arrive at the eventual inductees into the Hall of Fame.
“Having undertaken an independent, thorough and unprecedented data-driven annual performance appraisals of the 469-member ninth National Assembly since its first anniversary in 2020,” the organisation says it “deemed it appropriate and timely to commence instituting the Most Valuable Parliamentarian (MVP) Hall of Fame.”
The annual appraisals focused exclusively on the core legislative function of law-making, and consideration for the MVP nomination and subsequent shortlisting essentially applied the Value, Impact, and Productivity criteria in rating those shortlisted contributions.
While value speaks to the correlation of a bill’s advancement of the governance objective of the federal government; impact relates to the empirical contribution of a bill to the enhancement of the lives and living conditions of citizens; and productivity applies to the stage of progression of a bill to measure the diligence, dedication and hard work put into its processing by its sponsor.
DOWNLOAD: The Annual Report: Performance Appraisals Of The National Assembly (3rd Session)
Some of the lawmakers shortlisted as Semi-Finals include Speaker Femi Gbajabiamila (APC, Surulere I, Federal Constituency, Lagos), Samuel Ifeanyi Onuigbo (APC, Umuahia North/Umuahia South, Federal Constituency, Abia), Senator Uba Sani (APC, Kaduna Central Senatorial District), Dachung Musa Bagos (PDP, Jos South/Jos East Federal Constituency, Plateau), Uzoma Nkem Abonta(PDP, Ukwa East/Ukwa West, Federal Constituency, Abia), Senator Ifeanyi Patrick Ubah (YPP, Anambra South Senatorial District) and Ezenwa Francis Onyewuchi (LP, Imo East Senatorial District) among others.
