The Royal Commonwealth Society Nigeria on Thursday, honoured the Speaker, House of Representatives, Yakubu Dogara, with Commonwealth Ambassador’s Award for leading the legislators to pass 130 bills in a day.
The Vice President of the association, Mr Abdullahi Faruk, told newsmen at the 2016 Commonwealth Day Celebration in Abuja that the feat was novel.
A total of 130 bills passed first reading at the House of Representatives on Dec. 10, 2015, a development Dogara, described as “unprecedented”.
“We looked at the antecedents of the person of Yakubu Dogara, how he has taken the mantle of legislative leadership.
“We looked at how he has, for the very first time, introduced over 100 bills in one day for the legislators to deliberate for the good of Nigerians.
“We looked at the feat, it is an all-inclusive kind of governance for Nigerian people and he deserved that recognition and that is why the Commonwealth gave him that recognition.”
Faruk, however, said that the recognition given to the Speaker was to ensure that he continued to deliver for the good of the Nigerian people.
The Chairperson, House Committee on Foreign Affairs, Mrs Nnenna Ukeje-Elendu, who represented Dogara, told NAN that Nigeria had benefitted a lot from her membership of the Commonwealth.
“The Commonwealth gives us another opportunity and platform where we can converse about Nigeria outside of the United Nations and other international organisations that we belong to.
“This opportunity is such that grows and emancipates our people and deepens our democracy,” she said.
Ukeje-Elendu noted that Nigeria, as the largest country and the largest economy in Africa, could not live in isolation in a world that had become increasingly without borders.
She explained that Nigeria was indeed recognised and affirmed by those international institutions it belonged to as the “giant of Africa”.
“The Commonwealth is an association of people who have filial, historical affinities and is a platform where we can actually speak on the issues that matter to us most.
“These issues are freedom, gender equality, global and security, and bridging the gap of poverty, diversification, creating platform for trade and to speak about the things that affect us.”
(NAN)
