The Speaker of the House of Representatives, Mr.Femi Gbajabiamila, and 19 other Lawmakers have been shortlisted for the first-ever Most Valuable Parliamentarian Hall of Fame awards organised by OrderPaper Nigeria.
Others are: Benjamin Kalu. Samuel Ifeanyi Onuigbo; Ezenwa Francis Onyewuchi; Senator Ovie Augustine Omo-Agege; Uba Sani; Ibrahim Yahaya Oloriegbe; Aishatu Dahiru Ahmed; Mohammed Sani Musa; Dan Agundi Munir Babba; Uzoma Nkem Abonta; Fulata Abubakar Hassan; and Mohammed Tahir Monguno.
According to Executive Director of OrderPaper Nigeria, Mr Oke Epia, the 20 shortlisted lawmakers out of the 469 members of the 9th Assembly, comprises a female Senator, two Principal Officers, two Presiding Officers and 10 first-term lawmakers across party lines from both the Senate and House of Representatives.
Epia explains that the MVP Hall of Fame initiative furthers the organization’s contributions to legislative strengthening and promotion of improved service delivery in the National Assembly.
”The MVP nomination and subsequent shortlisting applied the criteria of Value, Impact, and Productivity in rating the contributions of those shortlisted.
“”The three-year appraisal focused exclusively on the core legislative function of law-making. While value speaks to the correlation of a bill’s advancement of the governance objective of the federal government; impact relates to the empirical contribution of a bill to the enhancement of the lives and living conditions of citizens; and productivity applies to the stage of progression of a bill to measure the diligence, dedication, and hard work put into its processing by its sponsor, he said.
He explains that Out of the 55 members who were nominated for possible induction and conferred with certificates of recognition at a prestigious Evening of Sparkles held in July 2022, “only 20 of these nominees have now made the semi-final shortlist and would be subjected to a rigorous points-based scoring system to arrive as the eventual inductees into the Hall of Fame.
The MVP Panel of Experts (MPEs) drawn from parliamentary think tanks, the academia, media, civil society, and the private sector would assist in determining the Most Valuable Parliamentarians of the Ninth National Assembly.
The MVPs Induction ceremony is to send forth the 9th Assembly Class and welcome those elected to Parliament.
The organization challenges the incoming 10th assembly to be more open, transparent and accountable, making attendance records in plenary sessions, committee meetings, and oversight visits public.