Legislative Committee System and Institutional Performance in Nigeria’s National Assembly: An Institutional Analysis

This study examines the legislative committee system and institutional performance in Nigeria’s National Assembly through a comparative institutional lens. It argues that although committees are firmly embedded in the constitutional and parliamentary framework of the National Assembly, their practical contribution to legislative performance remains uneven. The paper adopts a qualitative research design based on document and thematic analyses, drawing on constitutional provisions, parliamentary documents, institutional publications and relevant scholarly literatures. The analysis shows that committees are central to legislative organisation because they structure specialisation, reduce plenary workload and provide the main channels for oversight, hearings, investigations and detailed scrutiny of public policy and expenditure. The study further finds that the effectiveness of the committee system is constrained by overlapping mandates, weak coordination, limited operational support, inadequate access to information and uneven follow-through on oversight outcomes. Comparative evidence suggests that the committee system performs best where jurisdictions are clearly defined, committee leadership is meaningful and the wider legislature enjoys sufficient autonomy to make scrutiny consequential. The paper concludes that the weakness of Nigeria’s committee system lies less in the absence of formal powers than in the underdevelopment of the institutional and political conditions required to make those powers consistently effective. It recommends jurisdictional rationalisation, stronger committee support systems, firmer follow-up procedures and greater legislative autonomy as necessary steps toward improving committee performance and democratic accountability in Nigeria.