As Ahmad Lawan’s leadership of the 9th Senate winds up in barely two months, there are visible indications that the in coming 10th Senate will no doubt lose the valuable contributions of some key Senators who were responsible for the glaring success recorded by the outgoing Senate.

Recall that at the flag off of his administration on June 11, 2019, the President of the Senate, Dr Ahmad Lawan had rolled out his legislative Agenda in which he expressed his commitment to work for Nigerians with a robust legislative agenda that covered critical areas of our economy in need of immediate intervention.

Prominent amongst such areas are security, economy, revenue generation and collection, education and constitution amendment. 

To actualize Lawan’s lofty goals he needed some hardworking lawmakers  to drive this agenda in their respective committees as heads of such committees.

The lawmakers who worked round the clock to achieve the target set by  the president of the Senate in his legislative Agenda  in terms of lawmaking which is the Hallmark of their constitutional role as parliamentarians and sparing  no efforts in their representative roles to their constituents through their valuable contributions to nation building and Constituency projects will definitely be missed by the 10th National Assembly.

Nevertheless, the unfolding  events from the party primaries of some political parties in the country and outcome of the recently concluded Presidential and National Assembly elections provided sufficient evidence to conclude that these crop of Senators would not make the forthcoming inauguration of the 10th Senate.

New National Star recent investigation and insight into the Bills Progression Chart of the 9th Senate reveals that out of the 109 Senators that made the 9th Senate at the  inauguration on January 11, 2019 no fewer than 20 senators contributed immensely to the passage of Bills recorded to the credit of this administration.

A critical analysis of the Bills standing to the credit of majority of the Senators who shaped the 9th Senate belonged largely to the outgoing Senators.

In the rating, Senator Olerigbe Yahaya Ibrahim (APC Kwara Central), A first term Senator who replaced immediate past Senate President, Dr Bukola Saraki and Chairman Senate committee on Health sponsored so many private member Bills out of which 10 were passed into law and transmitted to President Muhammadu Buhari for his assent.

By this record the Kwara born politician stands out as a senator with the  highest number of passed  Bills in the 9th Senate but would not make it the 10th Senate.

Second in  the list of Senators that bagged five Bills passed into law out of other Bills that are at different levels of passage  by the outgoing Senate are: Deputy President of the Senate, Senator Ovie Omo-Agege (APC,Delta Central). The Deputy Senate Omo-Agege is the sponsor of the 2022 Electoral Act that was signed into law a couple of months ago and is being use today for the conduct of this year’s elections.

The Delta born politician who is currently running for the governorship polls under the platform of APC in Delta state sponsored this same Bill in February 2019 and the Bill scaled final passage on December 18,2019 but was denied assent by President Buhari under the leadership of Dr Bukola Saraki in the 8th Senate.

However, the Bill found favour when it was represented a second time by the same sponsor under the leadership of Dr Ahmad Lawan and Buhari assented to it after some legislative considerations . Today it is on trial by the Independent National Electoral Commission in the ongoing polls. 

In or out of government, Omo-Agege will not be part of the 10th Senate.

A female Senator, Senator Dahiru Aishatu Ahmed (APC Adamawa Central) who is running for the governorship of Adamawa state had five Bills passed into law by the 9 Senate out of other Bills waiting for passage at various levels of Progression chart. Her hardworking instinct has placed her above many male lawmakers in the Senate and the virtue of this record she places second in the Senate rating. The 10th Senate will no doubt miss her valuable contributions to the Red Chamber.

Senator Uba Sani ( APC Kaduna  Central) also had Five Bills passed on the floor of the Senate during the period under review out if so many other Bills undergoing processes of final passage.

Senator Sani will be contesting the governorship position on the ticket of APC in Kaduna state on Saturday among other contestants and by virtue of his ambition, his contributions would be greatly missed by the 10th Senate.

The last and not the least in that second category with five Bills already passed by the Senate is Senator Tolulope Akinremi Odebiyi (APC,Ogun West). The lawmaker has other pending Bills to his credit.

Also leading the 3nd category of Senators that had four Bills passed to their credit are Senator Smart Adeyemi ( APC Kogi west) Senator Adeyemi, a ranking Senator and former national president of Nigeria Union of Journalists NUJ), will be running for Kogi Guber election coming up before the end of the year. He has other Bills at different levels of passage and will be greatly missed in the 10th Senate. 

Senator Ahmed Babba Kaita ( PDP Katsina North) had four Bills to his credit. Sen Baba Kaita who recently decamped to PDP from APC is the Chairman,Senate Committee on TetFund and Tertiary Institutions.

Senators Sani Musa ( APC Niger East) and Bamidele Opeyemi(APC Ekiti Central) would certainly make it to the 10th Senate.

The fourth in the Bill Progression chart are Senators Ali Ndume ( APC Borno South) and Sen Buhari Abdulfatai(Oyo North) have other Bills undergoing various levels of passage on the floor of the Senate.

Meanwhile, a critical analysis of the Bill Progression chart of the 9th Senate shows that 60 percent of members could not sponsor bills and  motions within the life of the administration.

Again larger percent of the Bills passed by the outgoing Senate were sponsored by members from the ruling APC government.

It is expected that with about 57 members of the ruling APC, 

  securing  57 seats while the Peoples Democratic Party has 28 and Labour Party (LP) retaining six seats, the opposition parties be challenged by the record that would be left behind by their APC counterparts in the 9th Senate.

As the jostling for the seat of the presidency of the Senate heats up among ranking Senators from likely favoured geopolitical zones in the South, it is expected that whoever may wear the crown of chairman of National Assembly and President of the Senate will borrow a cue from the outgoing Senate President, Dr Ahmad Lawan on his style of leadership in terms of building bridges of relationship with the Executive arm.

In one of remarks Lawan assured Nigerians that the National Assembly would continue to collaborate with the executive arm to ensure that the challenges posed by insecurity across parts of the country are nipped in the bud.