OrderPaper has maintained that its National Assembly Annual Performance Appraisals remain founded on impeccable data
OrderPaper, Nigeria’s foremost independent parliamentary monitoring organisation, wishes to address recent inquiries regarding the methodology and data integrity of our annual performance appraisals of members of the National Assembly.
This statement is issued in light of recent discourse and potential misconceptions surrounding the accuracy of our reporting and analysis of the first-year performance of the extant 10th assembly.
Members of the public are kindly invited to note the following facts:
1. The period covered in our annual performance appraisal of the first legislative session (year one) of the 10th National Assembly is June 2023, when the assembly was inaugurated to May 2024. This is indicated in our publications, including illustrative graphic cards posted on our website and social media handles.
2. The data used in our analysis is meticulously sourced from official records of the National Assembly, including the National Assembly Journal, Notice Paper, Order Paper, and Votes and Proceedings. Data from these sources are collated, compared, contrasted, and combined to ensure the interoperability and integrity of the summarised data and our eventual report card for each legislator.
3. Based on (2) above, OrderPaper has consistently provided objective and comprehensive annual performance appraisals of National Assembly members over the past five (5) years.
4. None of our appraisals have been validly contested over these past five years: Legislators and other stakeholders who expressed doubts and reservations were invited to come forward with facts and evidence in their possession, and in the spirit of transparency and accountability, the ensuing exchange and reconciliation ALWAYS confirmed the impeccability of our data and report cards.
5. As the leading authority on legislative reporting in Nigeria and the country’s foremost parliamentary monitoring organisation, OrderPaper has earned its stripes and plaudits from stakeholders, including lawmakers, the media, academia, and civil society, for its detailed data-driven approach to the annual performance appraisals. Please read more about this here: IN THEIR OWN WORDS: Accolades for OrderPaper on NASS scorecards
6. We boldly state that our annual performance appraisals have produced verifiable impacts in the service delivery efforts of legislators, especially concerning bill processing in the National Assembly. Please read more about this here: LAWMAKERS’ SCORECARD: Beyond the number of bills sponsored.
We have noted the enthusiastic public engagement of the first-year performance report card of Rep. Oluwaseyi Sowunmi, a member representing Ojo Federal Constituency of Lagos State in the House of Representatives, and believe that he must have been mistaken to react the way he has done.
We, therefore, wish to encourage him or his office to present pertinent facts regarding bills being attributed to him. This is what his colleagues, including principal officers of the national assembly, have done when clarifications were required. While we hope that he will toe this path and seize the opportunity to demonstrate accountability to his constituents, it remains our determination, based on the infallibility of the data utilised for the appraisals, that he scored nil in the bills sponsorship chart within the period under review.
In light of threats and harassment to our journalists and organisation on this matter, we have taken steps to seek the protection of the law and briefed our lawyers to respond appropriately.
Finally, we wish to reassure the general public that, in fulfilling our mission to provide simple parliamentary data that empowers citizens to take action and enable informed decision-making by public and private entities, OrderPaper remains committed to enabling legislative accountability in the highest standards of objectivity.
Signed:
Management
October 2, 2024
