Senate President Godswill Akpabio has called on lawmakers to place national interest above partisan politics as the Senate resumed plenary sittings following its legislative recess, telling members that Nigerians expect the National Assembly to respond to the country’s mounting security and economic challenges with courage and purposeful legislation.
In a keynote address marking the resumption, Akpabio said the legislature must rise to meet Nigerians’ expectations by passing laws that strengthen national security, stimulate economic growth, improve healthcare and education, expand opportunity for young people and protect the vulnerable, expressing particular concern over the continued captivity of abducted schoolchildren in Ondo State and other Nigerians still held by terrorists. He described the chamber’s return as more than a constitutional ritual, framing it as a renewed call to duty at a moment when the voices of over 200 million Nigerians converge through their elected representatives, and stressed that lawmakers remained actively engaged in national service throughout the recess by meeting constituents and responding whenever the country’s interests demanded parliamentary intervention. Parliament may adjourn, he said, but democracy never sleeps, arguing that great legislatures are remembered not for keeping to schedule but for rising above it whenever the nation demanded, since patriotism means choosing duty over personal convenience.
Reflecting on the party primaries and other political processes that unfolded during the recess, Akpabio urged politicians and citizens alike to respect constitutional outcomes regardless of whether they emerged victorious or disappointed, arguing that beyond every individual win or loss stands a greater triumph, the survival of constitutional order itself, since nations rarely collapse because they hold elections but because they refuse to respect the results. Democracy endures, he said, when the nation is valued above victory and personal ambition bows to the constitution, even as he acknowledged that the country’s underlying security challenges remain far from resolved.
