Speaker of the House of Representatives, Femi Gbajabiamila, has decried the high rate at which many Nigerian youths leave the country to seek greener pastures abroad, saying that they have lost hope in the system.
Gbajabiamila disclosed this during the valedictory session of the 9th House on Wednesday at the National Assembly Complex, Abuja.
The Speaker noted that if this trend must be nipped in the bud, a healthy, vigorous growing economy that would provide opportunities for all who work hard to succeed through their labour and ingenuity must be built.
While observing that adequate security must also be provided to protect the lives and property of the people, Gbajabiamila said: “Despite the considerable investments we have made to improve our public infrastructure and the numerous reforms we have enacted to change how we administer the government, our country faces many significant challenges.”
The Speaker noted that these challenges have caused many of Nigerian citizens to wonder if the promise of democracy will ever become real in their lives.
According to Gbajabiamila: “Too many of our young people have lost faith entirely and are choosing to move in droves to seek their fortunes and their futures in other lands We are losing some of our best and brightest brains and if we don’t act now, the consequences of this loss will shortly become painfully evident.
“How do we ensure a healthy, vigorous, growing economy that provides opportunities for all who work hard to succeed through their labour and ingenuity? How do we protect our people from the marauders and insurgents, the petty criminals and assorted villains who wish to harm them, whether for profit or in service of other agendas?
“How do we restore faith in our young people so that so many of them no longer feel like the only way to achieve their best aspirations is to chase their fortunes in far away, often hostile lands? These are the critical questions all of us in government must answer or risk the unforgiving judgment of history.
“With each new day, we have an opportunity to make the hard choices and take the necessary actions to guarantee our nation’s future. With each new day, we have less time to act and a more outstanding obligation to act quickly”.
He highlighted the many feats of the 9th House, which have resulted in many Legislative legacies that include the Companies and Allied Matters Act (CAMA), Nigeria Start-Up Act, Electoral Act, constitutional review process, financial independence for state Houses of Assembly and state Judiciary, as well as successful interventions in labour disputes.
Others achievements of the House, according to him, are the January to December Budget cycle, the Petroleum Industry Act and the Police Act, among others.
“These reforms did not end Police misbehaviour in our country; soon enough, there was a national reckoning. We responded by working with the Nigeria Bar Association (NBA) to establish a new framework of accountability to hold erring members of the Police Force to account for their conduct in the performance of their duties and compel the Nigerian Police Force (NPF) to take responsibility for the failures of training and discipline that leads to such wrongful conduct.
“And we appropriated the sum of Five Hundred Million Naira through the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) to compensate victims of police brutality nationwide.
“I sincerely hope that the work of Police reform will continue in the House of Representatives until we achieve a system of policing that meets our nation’s needs and reflects the best of us”, he said.
Gbajabiamila lamented the inability to remove constitutional barriers that have stood in the way of women’ participation in the politics.
He, therefore, urged the incoming 10th House of Representatives to do its best in removing some of the constitutional barriers that have long stood in the way of women’s full and unhindered participation in the politics, governance and economy of the country.
“To succeed in our shared ambition of building a prosperous and peaceful country, we must do everything within our power to ensure that our daughters and those yet to be born can grow up in a more open, more equal society than their mothers did.
“Unfortunately, we did not succeed in removing some of the constitutional barriers that have long stood in the way of women’s full and unhindered participation in the politics, governance and economy of our nation. This issue must continue to be at the fore of our national conversations. I hope the 10th House of Representatives will take up the mantle and do better than we did”, he added.
Gbajabiamila who has just been appointed as the Chief Of Staff to President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, assured that he would work to ensure a good relationship between the Executive and Legislature, while respecting the independence of the Legislature.
