Lagos Assembly To Establish Centre For Legislative Studies

In order to enhance the quality of legislative staff and service delivery at the state and local legislatures in Lagos State, the Speaker of the state House of Assembly, Adeyemi Ikuforiji, has declared that his administration would establish a training centre to be known as Centre for Legislative Studies.

Ikuforiji, who made the disclosure in Accra, Ghana, while declaring open a five-day seminar titled Legislative Strategic Planning and Management, organised for the legislative staff of the Assembly, in conjunction with the International Law Institute based in the United States, said the centre would soon be established.

The centre, according to the Speaker, would be responsible for training legislative staff of the state House of Assembly, elected officials as well as support staff in the Local Government Areas of the state.

While drawing instances from advanced democracies around the world, Ikuforiji explained that developing the support staff through training would go a long way in building a virile legislative institution and consequently stabilise democracy.

According to him, the greatest number of the people stand the chance of benefiting immensely from democratic governance when a solid legislature is established.

“The policy thrust of the House is training and retraining because the leadership believes it is only by building a solid legislature that the masses can have greater democratic dividends,” he noted.

He stated the legislature is the most misunderstood, especially with the high media concentration on its activities.

The Speaker appealed to the people to imbibe the culture of supporting the Legislature, while lamenting that the institution had suffered enough ‘truncated growth.’

Ikuforiji, who noted that the legislature all over the world is beset with same problem, blamed other arms of government for contributing to the stunted growth.