Yussuff Lasun, Deputy Speaker of the House of Representatives, has called on world leaders to work together toward finding lasting peace to global conflicts.
This, he said, is necessary in order to peace across the globe instead of fear and crises that are ravaging some of the countries of the world.
The Deputy Speaker who stated this at the ongoing 137 Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) Conference holding in Russia, said all hands must be on deck to find lasting solutions to the problems that caused conflicts across the globe.
“In the last few years, we have been feeling the intense heat of extremism, Xenophobic attacks, the issue of racism has started rearing its head again and we also have the issue of intolerance.
“These are the issues that the whole world is facing today and everybody is trying to find a way to settle conflicts. This is because it is in the midst of peace that we can have democracy and without democracy, it is very difficult to have development,” Lasun who doubles as chairman, Ad-hoc Committee on political agitation said.
The Osun lawmaker maintained that what is needed to be done is to first of all find a way of achieving peace, then from achieving peace we can begin to have development.
According to him, “The 8th National Assembly was poised to making laws that would promote peace and unity, as well as take advantage of its oversight powers to dialogue with different sections of the country.”
He however assured that the National Assembly would continue to engage the Executive toward ensuring that it improved on its policies and programmes to enable the public to feel the positive impact of government.
On relationship between the Executive and the Legislature, Deputy Speaker observed that Nigerians had yet to come to the understanding that the parliament played an important role in governance.
He said the parliament that defined democracy ought to be recognised as integral part of governance, adding that Nigerians often criticised the parliament and assumed that it was by doing so that there would be good governance.
“By supporting the parliament to grow, you actually grow the democracy too because if you don’t support parliament, you are not likely to be able to grow your democracy.
“So, a lot of the people in executive do not understand the fact that it is parliament that defines democracy and whatever you want to do,” he added.
