angling for one thing or the other; more or less, they were for the advancement of personal or group interests.

If they were not formed to mobilize against the leadership, it could be that they wanted to press for some juicy committee positions for their members. The motivation behind the emergence of “The Initiatives” was clouded and the initial absence of a comprehensible articulation of its vision compounded the mystery that surrounded the group as far as the understanding of watchers of legislative business was concerned.

From their mission statement, they presented themselves as “an agenda setting forum of a league of some cerebral legislators in the Nigerian House of Representatives who believe in the realization of vision 2020 and who are passionately committed to good governance in Nigeria through proactive and people-oriented legislation.”

This sounded abstract. Understanding the group proved even trickier because of the kind of “unparliamentarily” appellations with which they identify themselves. For instance, the seventeen founding members of the group make up what they refer to as the “Faculty Board” while their leader, Rep. Eseme Eyiboh goes by the title, “Dean of the Faculty.” One could be forgiven if he wonders what a University faculty board and its dean are doing in the everyday business of parliament.

Gradually, the group’s disposition has become clearer. Rep. Eyiboh sought to allay the fears of sceptics when he rationalized “The Initiatives” objectives by saying that whereas other groups were thrown up by circumstances with the desire to create vacancy in the leadership of the House or were established because of a situation of conflict which threatened internal democracy of the House, “The Initiatives” is like a brain box for the House.

 According to him, “we found out that the current insecurity in the Nigerian society is because our laws and governance are unable to protect the majority who are poor and because the majority who are poor cannot be protected, the few who are rich therefore can never be safe. That is the imperative of the society we found ourselves today and because of that circumstance it becomes very clear that we must do something to be able to give access to basic things for the majority who are poor so that the few who are rich will be able to understand that the society is a society where all of us must benefit from.”

With this conviction, the group engages in brainstorming and thoroughly absorbing sessions, dissecting the numerous problems besetting the country. That is where their similarity with University stops. Several months after its formation and against all projections that it was a one-off thing that would soon fizzle out, “The Initiatives,” has demonstrated strength of character, tenacity and it is growing in leaps and bounds even as it is attracting the attention of very serious-minded individuals and organisations in and outside the country. They have up till now demonstrated that their interest indeed, has nothing to do with committee positions or the need to create vacancy in the leadership of the House but are instead, concerned with the wider issues of correcting the negative image of the Nigerian legislator in the eye of the public and ensuring good governance through laws.

From the about 20 original members, its roll call has expanded to include tens of legislators who share their vision of good governance built on social justice. At least, twice each month, they have organized national roundtable with policy makers and various stakeholders in attendance where various national issues of concern have been analyzed with a view to proffering solutions through appropriate legislations. Some of the roundtables so far conducted by them include “National Roundtable for Good Governance; the 1999 Constitution: issues, challenges and the road map; Politics and Governance: the challenges of electoral reforms and Vision 2020 Economy and Nigeria in the top 20 bracket – task and strategies.”

The issues addressed are in line with their vision to create an enabling environment for constructive engagement on issues within the purview of governance especially within the context of Vision 2020, provide a consistent forum for interaction between members of various publics on national and global issues, enable members of various legislative houses to share ideas that would lead to quality legislation, promote the concept of good governance through proactive legislation and encourage a robust synergy between the legislative and the executive arms of government and identify indices which make for a bill with patriotic and national interest.

This plays into the hands of Speaker Dimeji Bankole whose dream of a House of Representatives where robust debates, exciting motions, timely bills and quality legislations would flow for it to be “once again be referred to as the House of the Nigerian people,” serves as the driving force behind the group actions.

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