File: National Assembly complex
The Clerk to the National Assembly, Kamoru Ogunlana, has warned against the promotion of legislative staff based on external influence rather than merit, competence and experience, cautioning that such practices could expose the institution to legal challenges and administrative instability.
He also called for an end to ad hoc training arrangements for National Assembly personnel, advocating greater use of the National Institute for Legislative and Democratic Studies to build the capacity of legislative workers and ensure more efficient use of scarce resources.
Ogunlana made the submissions on Saturday in Abuja at the opening of a three-day retreat for top management officials of the National Assembly and the National Assembly Service Commission, held at the Transcorp Hilton Hotel.
He said staff appointments, promotions and professional development must comply with the National Assembly Service Act 2014 and the applicable scheme of service, stressing that merit and competence should remain the guiding principles in personnel administration.
According to the CNA, “the National Assembly service is a professional one, requiring staff to be appointed, promoted and developed principally based on merit, competence, experience and performance as stipulated by the National Assembly Service Act 2014.
“Where appointments or promotions are influenced by considerations outside the National Assembly Service Act 2014, and the applicable Scheme of Service, we risk creating serious institutional consequences, that is, judicial review, administrative embarrassment and institutional instability”, he warned.
He added that the consequences may not be limited to the individuals involved; they may also affect the entire Service.
“When seniority, cognate experience and competence are subordinated to ‘where you come from’ or other considerations, we may find ourselves with positions occupied by people who do not possess the requisite competence, experience or capacity for those responsibilities.
“The result can be an institution with too many people in positions and too few people with the capacity to perform those positions effectively”, he stressed.
The warning comes amid the need to strengthen professionalism, institutional accountability and capacity within the National Assembly Service, whose personnel play key roles in supporting legislative proceedings, committee oversight, research and parliamentary administration.
On staff development, Ogunlana said the National Assembly needed to move away from its existing ad hoc training arrangements, which he described as unsustainable in view of limited financial resources.
He argued that the National Institute for Legislative and Democratic Studies, an institution affiliated with the National Assembly, had the institutional capacity to provide specialised training tailored to the needs of legislative personnel.
He said, “Our staff require continuous exposure to legislative practice, parliamentary procedure, policy analysis, research, digital technologies, public financial management, ethics, leadership and emerging global practices in parliamentary administration.
“The present ad hoc arrangement of training personnel of service is not sustainable given our limited financial resources.
“In this regard, I believe we should make more deliberate use of the considerable institutional capacity of the National Institute for Legislative and Democratic Studies as the central professional platform for the training and development of staff of the National Assembly Service”.
In his goodwill message, the Executive Chairman of the National Assembly Service Commission, Saviour Enyiekere, said the commission remained committed to building a disciplined, competent, responsive and forward-looking legislative service.
He said the commission would continue to promote merit, respect due process, pay appropriate attention to staff welfare and encourage every officer to contribute meaningfully to institutional progress.
The President of the Senate, Godswill Akpabio, and the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Tajudeen Abbas, were represented at the ceremony.