In May 2024, Nigerians discovered that their national anthem was changing. A bill to restore the independence-era anthem, “Nigeria, We Hail Thee”, in place of “Arise, O Compatriots”, moved through the National Assembly in a matter of days and was signed into law on 29 May. Whatever one thinks of either anthem, the most revealing thing about the episode was not the lyrics. It was the speed, and the near-total absence of meaningful public consultation on a question that belonged to every Nigerian. That episode was not an aberration. It was a clear view of how lawmaking has come to work in the Senate presided over by Godswill Akpabio.
The Anthem Was a Warning
A national anthem is the easiest law in the world to take slowly. Nothing collapses if the change waits a year. No investor is harmed, no budget stalls, no security operation depends on it. It is purely a question of national identity, which is exactly the kind of question on which a legislature should invite schools, historians, artists, religious bodies and ordinary citizens to be heard. The Senate had every reason to take its time and no reason to hurry. It hurried anyway. When a chamber rushes the one bill that carried no urgency at all, Nigerians are entitled to ask what happens to the bills that touch their taxes, their elections and the country’s debt.
What the Readings Are For
The legislative process is deliberately slow. A bill is read for the first time so that it can be published and studied, debated on its general principles at second reading, examined line by line in committee, opened to the public at hearings, and only then returned for a final vote. Each stage exists for a reason: to let citizens discover what is being proposed, to let experts point out mistakes, and to let affected communities object before the damage is done. Public hearings in particular are the only point in the process at which a trader, a teacher or a civil society group can speak directly into a law. When those stages are compressed, stacked into a single sitting or treated as formalities, the safeguards remain on paper while their purpose disappears.
Fast for the Executive, Slow for Everyone Else
The pattern that troubles observers of the Tenth Senate is not that it is always fast. It is that its speed is selective. Requests arriving from the executive — borrowing approvals, budget adjustments, priority bills — have repeatedly found their way to a vote with remarkable efficiency. Motions and bills that inconvenience the government, or that originate with citizens and opposition members, are far more likely to disappear into committees and never return. A legislature that sprints when the Presidency calls and strolls when the public calls is not exercising independent judgement. It is keeping someone else’s timetable.
The Presiding Officer Sets the Clock
It would be convenient to blame this on the institution as a whole, but the rhythm of the Senate is not an accident of nature. The Senate President controls the order paper, presides over the referral of bills, rules on when rules may be suspended and shapes how long a matter stays before the chamber. A presiding officer committed to deliberation could insist on minimum waiting periods between readings, refuse to fold several stages into one sitting except in genuine emergencies, and treat public hearings as mandatory for any bill of national significance. Akpabio has had every tool needed to slow the chamber down to the speed of scrutiny. The record suggests he has preferred the speed of convenience.
Bills Nobody Has Read
Speed has a partner in secrecy. Journalists, lawyers and civil society groups have long complained that clean, current versions of bills are difficult to obtain before they are passed, and that harmonised texts sometimes surface only after the votes have been taken. A citizen cannot object to a clause she has never been allowed to see. In a digital age, there is no technical excuse for this. Every bill could be published online at first reading, every committee amendment logged publicly and every final text released before the vote. A Senate President who wanted Nigerians to participate in their own lawmaking would have made that the standing practice of the chamber from his first week in office.
The Price of Getting It Wrong
Hurried laws are rarely good laws. They carry drafting errors that must later be corrected by amendment, ambiguities that end up in court, and consequences nobody examined because nobody was given the time. More damaging still is what hurried lawmaking does to public trust. Every time Nigerians learn after the fact that a decision affecting their lives has already been taken, the distance between citizens and their representatives grows. A legislature is supposed to be the branch of government closest to the people. Under Akpabio, it has too often behaved like a branch that would rather the people did not notice until the ink was dry.
The Standard Nigerians Should Demand
Nothing about this is complicated to fix. Publish every bill when it is introduced. Require public hearings for any law touching national symbols, taxation, elections or borrowing. Set minimum intervals between readings and permit exceptions only for declared emergencies. Record how every senator votes on significant legislation. These reforms cost almost nothing and could be adopted by a presiding officer in a single sitting — which is precisely why their absence is so telling. As 2027 approaches, Nigerians should judge the Senate’s leadership not by how many bills it passed, but by how many of those laws the people they govern were ever given the chance to read. On that measure, Godswill Akpabio’s Senate presidency has failed the most basic test of a democratic legislature.
This article represents an editorial opinion based on publicly available information.
