Constituents ask lawmakers to fund naming ceremonies, everyday domestic needs – Senate Spokesman

Nigeria’s Senate Spokesman, Senator Yemi Adaramodu said things have gotten to a level where constituents now expect their representatives to function as personal benefactors to fund their naming ceremonies, building homes, and solving everyday domestic which put pressures on their representatives.

Adaramodu, who represents Ekiti South Senatorial District in the 10th Senate stated this when he was featured on Politics Today on Channels Television on Friday, while challenging public assumptions on the role of their lawmakers.

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“We go home almost every time and we are the ones, when they give birth to a new baby, they ask for naming ceremony funds.

“When they are building a new house, it is from us they ask for assistance,” he said.

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He said this demands are not within the constitutional responsibility of lawmakers, yet it has become an unwritten rule of engagement in Nigeria’s political culture.

Reacting to remarks on argument for and against whether lawmakers should serve on full and part time to save cost, he insisted that any move for lawmakers in the Senate and the House of Representatives will constitute threat to the nation’s nascent democracy.

“If the parliament is on part-time, it means democracy is on part-time.

“There is no democracy that derides its parliament and thrives,” he warned.

He insisted that lawmakers are not only lawmakers in the chambers but also lifelines for their people back home.
“The parliament is not just to sit down at the plenary and make laws alone. When we make laws, we follow it up. We do oversight.

“We advocate for our constituents. We are their only accessible arm of government,” he added.

Adaramodu also criticised the tendency to target the National Assembly for budget cuts, saying the public does not understand the critical and multifaceted role parliamentarians play in sustaining Nigeria’s fragile democracy.

“It will just be bewildering that even out of the three arms of government that we have in Nigeria, it is only the parliament and parliamentarians that our people have access to,” he noted.

Adarmodu said, lawmakers are the only reachable arm of government by their constituents.

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