Public affairs analyst and social critic, Mahdi Shehu, has urged the National Assembly to focus on solving Nigeria’s pressing problems instead of enacting what he described as “nonsensical” and “dangerous” laws.
In a post shared on X (formerly Twitter) on Thursday, Shehu accused lawmakers of exploiting the passiveness of Nigerians to introduce laws that serve the interests of a few rather than the majority.
“The biggest affliction of democracy is that a few—whether good, bad, fraudulent, or even dangerous—end up monopolizing lawmaking for the majority,” he wrote.
According to him, instead of wasting time on irrelevant legislation, lawmakers should tackle issues undermining governance and development.
Shehu proposed several reforms, including:
A Narcotic Terrorism Act to classify drug trafficking and sponsorship as terrorism.
A Budget Padding Terrorism Act to criminalize officials who inflate budgets.
A Frequent Travels Terrorism Act to sanction public officers who embark on unnecessary foreign trips at taxpayers’ expense.
A ban on public officials seeking medical treatment abroad after contributing to the decay of local hospitals.
He further suggested criminalizing negligence in areas such as constituency projects, power grid failures, and lawmakers’ absenteeism.
Shehu stressed that Nigeria urgently needs strong, practical laws to protect citizens from what he described as the “deliberate terrorism” of corrupt public office holders.
