By Tom Garba
The outgoing speaker of the 7th Adamawa assembly, Rt Hon Aminu Iya Abbas has described the Assembly as the most peaceful in history noting that posterity will be kind to it for the critical transformation it brought to the state.
The speaker who is now the senator – elect representing Adamawa North senatorial district made the revelation during the valedictory session of the house on Friday.
He thanked all the members of the 7th Adamawa Assembly for their unflinching cooperation without recourse to party leanings leading to the unprecedented success of the assembly and the state in general.
The speaker noted that from the start to the end of the assembly, no threat of impeachment was ever made on his leadership adding that the assembly never shutdown for a single day over fears of impeachment by the members.
Abbas who thanked the lawmakers for the cooperation noted that such entailed the rationale why his leadership bestowed on every member a merit award for ensuring the stability of the house.
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He said since inception, the Assembly has passed 67 laws and 63 resolutions, adding that though the number of the laws passed may be on the low side, he however noted that the quality and relevance of such laws can never be underrated.
“We have achieved a lot in terms of staffing, security, training and retraining of both members and staff of the assembly. The major one is the relationship between the executive and the legislative arms. We have complimented each other leading to the rapid transformation of Adamawa State.
“We also worked closely with the judicial arm of government. So far we have passed 67 laws and 63 resolutions which were acted upon. Sometimes when we passed the laws we looked at the importance and quality of the bills we have passed in the house not the quantum of the bills.
“We have passed so many bills that touch the lives of the people of the state from health, education, water supply etc. We have passed a lot of bills that affect people in this state,” he said.
He however, expressed concern over the lack of interest of the people towards some of the critical and impactful laws the 7th Adamawa assembly passed during the period, adding that the development is an anticlimax to the meritorious rendition the assembly dissipated during the period.
“People don’t follow up to see which kind of laws we have passed. We have passed a law that enhances revenue generation in the state for the first time and nobody attempted to ask the importance of the laws. We have done a lot for the state. We believe posterity will be fair to this assembly.
“We did financial reengineering for the state. To my dismay people did not understand the restructuring of the debt. People started flying stories that we were borrowing more money. We didn’t borrow money in the state. Most of the money borrowed has been paid before the end of the tenure that is why Fintiri achieved a lot.
“You and I know that before we came local government are not paying salary they owe a lot of money. I will tell you this administration has not borrowed a dime and we are paying salaries that is why I’m saying that we have achieved so much,” he added.
Abbas who urged the next assembly to make it e-compliant noted that some of the things he regretted not doing as the speaker of the 7th Adamawa assembly include his failure to make the assembly e-compliant and the failure to build houses for the members noting that despite these shortcomings, the assembly has performed wonderfully well.
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