The National Chairman of the African Democratic Congress (ADC), Ralphs Okey Nwosu, said the lawmakers have made their choices, but the people remain worried about the role of the executive in arriving at such choices.

He stated: “Moving forward, the National Assembly should become the real National Assembly, the principle of seniority should apply. You cannot have a first-time lawmaker emerge leader of any of both chambers; seniority is critical.

“Even though we want to do our ethnic balancing and diversity management, seniority should be critical in the leadership of the National Assembly. That will go a long way in reducing the in-fighting and tussle for positions in the legislature.

“I was at Transcorp Hilton on Monday and discovered that one of the senators had taken over a floor of the five-star hotel, while another one took two whole floors, just because the National Assembly was going to elect its leadership yesterday and a lot of horse-trading was going on. The cost of a standard room in Transcorp is between N250,000 and N600,000 per day/night.

“This is one of the things that affect the cost of governance, because by the time one spends millions of U.S. dollars to get to a position of influence and authority, he might begin to engage in things and activities that could cost the country huge sums of money as he tries to recoup.

“Well, as for the leadership of the legislature, this is the choice of the senators and representatives, willy-nilly, but one believes that maintaining seniority will help to reduce the level of horse-trading and spending of resources to get certain positions.”