Hon. Festus Adefiranye, representing Oke-Igbo/Ile-Oluji/Odigbo Federal Constituency of Ondo State in the House of Representatives, has decried the lack of autonomy for State Houses of Assembly.
Adefiranye, who served in the Ondo State House of Assembly from 2019 to 2023, described the comparison between the National Assembly and state assemblies as akin to “comparing death to sleep.”
In an interview with Premium Times, Adefiranye attributed the failure of state assemblies to achieve autonomy to the overbearing influence of governors. He remarked, “The gap between the two is just too wide because the state assembly has no autonomy. A state assembly is like the extension of the executive arm of the state government. There is nothing you can discuss on the floor of the state assembly; if the governor does not sanction it, there is no way it will fly.”
He emphasized that unlike the National Assembly, where lawmakers are free to discuss and act on issues with the support of their constituencies, state assembly members are restricted by the governors’ preferences.
Adefiranye also highlighted the repeated failures of the state assembly autonomy bill, noting, “The autonomy of the state assembly…when the National Assembly passes the bill, when it gets to the state assembly, it will fail because we need two-thirds of the state lawmakers to pass that bill. So that is to tell you that anything that is happening in the state, the governor must give consent to it.”
In conclusion, Adefiranye stressed the significant disparity between the functioning of the National Assembly and state assemblies, likening the difference to that between death and sleep.
