Nigeria’s National Assembly needs more than politicians who understand elections, party structures and the calculations required to win public office.
It needs people who understand the sectors they are expected to regulate, the institutions they are supposed to oversee and the technical details that determine whether laws will solve problems or create new ones.
The difference is often apparent in the quality of contributions made during plenary, the questions lawmakers ask government officials, the weaknesses they identify in proposed legislation and the solutions they recommend when public emergencies arise.
When professionals who have spent years building expertise in banking, accounting, medicine, law, engineering, education and other fields enter the legislature, they bring something that political experience alone may not provide: a practical understanding of how policies work, where systems fail and what needs to change.
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This is not to suggest that every accomplished professional automatically becomes an effective legislator, or that politicians without specialised professional backgrounds have little to contribute.
Rather, it is an argument for a National Assembly that deliberately draws on the knowledge, experience and technical competence of people who have distinguished themselves in their respective fields.
Interventions by senators such as Tokunbo Abiru, Solomon Adeola, Opeyemi Bamidele, Francis Fadahunsi, Godswill Akpabio and, more recently, Francis Faduyile illustrate the value such experience can bring to legislative work.
Faduyile’s intervention on Nigeria’s preparedness for the Ebola virus threat offers a particularly compelling example of what happens when professional knowledge meets the responsibilities of public office.
Barely a day after Nigeria confirmed an Ebola case involving a woman who had arrived from Uganda, the Senate considered a motion sponsored by Francis Faduyile, the senator representing Ondo South and a former president of the Nigerian Medical Association.
The timing was significant. At a moment when the country needed to strengthen its response to a potentially dangerous public health emergency, Faduyile brought the issue before the Senate with a set of proposals that went beyond expressions of concern.
His motion called for emergency funding to strengthen disease surveillance, mandatory health screening at international airports, seaports and designated land borders, improved staffing and equipment for Port Health Services, and adequate isolation and treatment facilities across the country.
He also called for the modernisation of Nigeria’s public health legislation, drawing attention to the continued reliance on the Quarantine Act of 1926.
The law’s age alone does not automatically make every provision ineffective. But the fact that legislation enacted a century ago remains central to Nigeria’s quarantine framework raises an important question about whether the country’s legal safeguards adequately reflect contemporary disease surveillance, international travel and public health emergencies.
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The motion called for the replacement of the outdated framework with modern legislation aligned with the International Health Regulations of 2005. It also addressed funding for the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control and Prevention and Port Health Services, including provisions to support preparedness in the 2027 budget.
These were not disconnected demands. They addressed different parts of the same problem: detecting a threat early, preventing its importation and spread, providing the personnel and facilities to respond, and ensuring that the institutions responsible have the legal authority and financial resources to do their jobs.
That breadth is what made the intervention particularly instructive.
A doctor who has spent years understanding the workings of the health sector is better positioned to recognise the relationship between disease surveillance, border screening, emergency preparedness and the capacity of health institutions. Faduyile’s medical background does not, by itself, guarantee the quality of every legislative decision he will make. But it gives him a professional foundation from which to interrogate these issues.
The urgency was equally important. Public health emergencies do not wait for the legislature’s preferred timetable. A motion brought when a threat emerges gives lawmakers an opportunity to press for preventive action before a situation deteriorates.
In this instance, the speed with which Faduyile brought the matter to the Senate stood out against the tendency for legislative attention to follow major incidents rather than anticipate their consequences.
His intervention also helped bring an old legislative weakness into sharper focus. The Quarantine Act dates to 1926, and the Senate subsequently called for an immediate process to review the law in consultation with the executive and relevant health authorities. The Senate President, Godswill Akpabio, directed the Senate Committee on Judiciary to engage the relevant institutions on the proposed amendment.
This is an important illustration of how a professional entering public office can contribute beyond the immediate crisis. The objective is not merely to respond to an Ebola case; it is to ask why the country’s legal and institutional arrangements should remain vulnerable to weaknesses that a crisis has exposed.
The ultimate test, of course, will be whether the Senate’s resolutions lead to better legislation, improved funding, stronger screening systems and more effective emergency preparedness. Motions are not substitutes for implementation. Nevertheless, identifying the problem, articulating the required interventions and compelling government agencies to respond are essential steps in the legislative process.
The same principle is evident in the work of Tokunbo Abiru, the senator representing Lagos East, whose career in banking and financial management provides a different kind of professional advantage.
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Before entering the National Assembly, Abiru spent more than three decades in the financial sector, rising to senior executive positions, including managing director and chief executive of Polaris Bank. He also served as Lagos State commissioner for finance.
In the Senate, where he chairs the Committee on Banking, Insurance and Other Financial Institutions, his professional background is directly relevant to the responsibilities of the office
A lawmaker who has worked within the financial system is more likely to recognise the practical consequences of regulatory provisions, identify questions that deserve closer scrutiny and appreciate the difference between a well-intentioned policy and one that can work in practice.
Such experience becomes particularly valuable when the Senate considers amendments to banking laws, insurance reforms and other measures affecting financial institutions.
Abiru’s background gives him the tools to interrogate the details: whether a proposed provision is consistent with existing regulatory arrangements, whether its wording creates ambiguity, whether a policy could produce unintended consequences and whether the proposed changes address the actual problem.
Another example is Solomon Adeola, a chartered accountant and senator whose legislative responsibilities include the preparation and consideration of public expenditure.
Figures are central to the work of the National Assembly. The federal budget, supplementary appropriations, revenue projections, public debt, government expenditure and allocations to ministries, departments and agencies all require lawmakers to interrogate numbers rather than merely receive them.
A budget can appear impressive on paper while concealing inconsistencies, unrealistic projections or questionable assumptions. A discrepancy in a table may seem minor, but an error in a financial document can distort the understanding of an allocation, undermine oversight or obscure how public resources are being distributed.
Adeola’s accounting background is relevant in this environment. An experienced accountant is trained to pay attention to numerical relationships, reconcile figures and question discrepancies that might escape someone without comparable technical experience.
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For a committee examining a large appropriation bill, the ability to scrutinise figures quickly can be particularly useful. It helps lawmakers move beyond broad political arguments about whether a budget is adequate to examine whether its components are internally consistent and whether the underlying assumptions deserve scrutiny.
That does not mean every error in a budget can be detected at a glance, or that accounting expertise eliminates the need for supporting documents, independent verification and committee scrutiny. It means that a lawmaker with the appropriate training has an additional tool for identifying problems and asking the right questions.
The National Assembly needs this kind of competence because the consequences of poor financial scrutiny are borne by citizens. Every naira appropriated by the legislature represents a public resource that should be accounted for.
When a lawmaker can identify a discrepancy, demand an explanation and insist on a correction, professional knowledge becomes a public asset.
This also applies to Fadahunsi, who spent years in the Nigeria Customs Service before venturing into politics. His background in the service gives him a practical understanding of its operations, procedures and institutional weaknesses, making it difficult to bamboozle him with technical explanations that might otherwise leave a less-informed lawmaker struggling to separate facts from official rhetoric.
Having worked within the system, he understands its language and knows the questions to ask when explanations do not add up. He is therefore able to interrogate issues from the perspective of someone who has seen the system from the inside, rather than relying solely on documents and briefings presented to him.
Every oversight meeting involving Fadahunsi demonstrates, even to a layman, the value of having someone who understands the workings of the institution being scrutinised.
He is often able to identify gaps in explanations, probe inconsistencies and demand clarifications that compel officials to look beyond prepared responses. His interventions show that effective oversight is not merely about summoning government agencies, listening to their submissions and recording their assurances. It requires the capacity to test those explanations against operational realities, recognise when important details have been omitted and insist on answers that address the substance of the matter under investigation.
This is one of the advantages of having professionals and people with substantial sector-specific experience in the National Assembly. Their knowledge helps to narrow the information gap between lawmakers and the officials they are expected to hold accountable.
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Godswill Akpabio presents another dimension of this argument. His background as a lawyer, experience in public administration and politics, including his time as governor of Akwa Ibom State, has given him substantial exposure to the workings of government and the legislative process.
His often-jovial public persona should not obscure his ability to engage with the technical implications of legislation and identify weaknesses that require further attention.
The Ebola debate provided a recent example. Following Faduyile’s motion, Akpabio called for urgent action to review the century-old Quarantine Act, stressing that the Senate should not simply wait for the executive to submit proposals before beginning consultations.
“We should not attempt to wait for them to bring an Act to us, we should go to them to get their inputs,” Akpabio said.
He also urged the relevant Senate committee to work with health authorities and the executive to address the shortcomings in the existing legal framework.
The intervention illustrated an important aspect of legislative leadership: recognising that a problem raised during plenary may require more than a resolution and directing the relevant institutions towards the next steps.
The lawmaking process involves identifying gaps, examining the relationship between existing provisions and new proposals, consulting affected institutions and ensuring that amendments produce workable legislation.
A law can fail not because its objective is wrong, but because its provisions are ambiguous, contradictory or inadequate for the circumstances in which they must operate.
This is why legislative experience and legal understanding matter. The ability to identify loopholes and ask what happens when a provision is implemented can determine whether a bill becomes an effective instrument of governance or another law that looks satisfactory on paper but proves difficult to enforce.
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That is the kind of interaction a functional parliament should encourage.
These examples raise a broader question about the people Nigerians elect to the National Assembly.
For too long, political conversations about legislative candidates have often centred on party loyalty, electoral strength, political connections, financial resources and the ability to mobilise supporters. These factors influence electoral outcomes, but they do not necessarily establish whether a candidate can scrutinise a complex bill, examine a budget or understand the technical implications of government policy.
The National Assembly is not merely a platform for political representation. It is an institution responsible for making laws, approving public expenditure, conducting oversight and holding the executive accountable.
Each responsibility requires preparation and competence.
A medical professional can bring insight into health financing, disease prevention and the regulation of medical practice. An engineer may be better equipped to interrogate infrastructure projects, technical specifications and construction costs. An educationist can contribute to debates about learning outcomes, teacher development and school administration. A lawyer may identify constitutional inconsistencies or weaknesses in proposed legislation, while an economist can challenge assumptions about growth, revenue and public expenditure.
The benefit extends beyond the committee room. Professionals often have practical experience of the consequences of government policy and understand the gap that can exist between what officials announce and what institutions can deliver.
That experience can help lawmakers ask more precise questions during oversight hearings and demand answers that go beyond general assurances.
However, professional credentials should not become another means of excluding ordinary citizens from public service. Nigeria needs representatives who understand the daily realities of the people they serve, including those who work outside formal professions. Practical knowledge, community leadership, integrity and a genuine commitment to public service also matter.
Nor should professional expertise become a substitute for democratic accountability. A highly qualified lawmaker who ignores constituents, protects powerful interests or fails to deliver on legislative responsibilities is not necessarily better than a representative without an impressive résumé.
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The objective should be to combine professional competence with integrity, accessibility, political independence and a clear understanding of the public interest.
Professionals who seek elective office must also recognise that the National Assembly is not an extension of their former workplaces. A doctor cannot approach every public health problem as a purely clinical matter; a banker must consider the social implications of financial policy; and an accountant must look beyond balancing figures to understand the human consequences of public expenditure.
Legislation requires negotiation, collaboration and the ability to reconcile competing interests. Expertise is most useful when it helps lawmakers make informed decisions without losing sight of the people those decisions affect.
Faduyile’s Ebola motion offers a useful reminder of why the National Assembly needs people who understand the subjects they legislate on. Its urgency brought an immediate public health concern before the Senate, while its breadth connected emergency preparedness with funding, institutional capacity and the need to modernise outdated legislation.
The common thread is not that one profession is more important than another. It is that the quality of lawmaking improves when those responsible for making laws possess the knowledge, discipline and experience to interrogate the issues before them.
Nigeria’s challenges are too complex for a legislature that relies solely on political instinct. The country needs lawmakers who can understand the fine print of a bill, recognise inconsistencies in a budget, question the assumptions behind a policy and identify gaps before those gaps become costly failures.
Professionals who have built successful careers outside politics should therefore consider public office not simply as another career opportunity, but as an avenue to deploy their experience in the service of the country.
Their responsibility does not end with winning elections. They must be willing to read, investigate, challenge, collaborate and follow through until legislative decisions produce tangible results.
Ultimately, the value of professional representation should be measured not by the number of degrees or prestigious positions lawmakers held before entering politics, but by what they do with the knowledge they bring into the National Assembly.
When expertise translates into better laws, more rigorous oversight and a more responsive government, the difference is clear. And when Nigerians choose representatives, that difference deserves far greater consideration than it often receives.
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