By Ahmed Abdulkadir
In Nigeria’s political culture, legislators are increasingly judged not by the quality of laws they make or the rigor of their oversight, but by the number of boreholes, classrooms, skill acquisition centres, or empowerment items they can point to in their constituencies. From councillors at the local government level to members of State Houses of Assembly, the House of Representatives and the Senate, constituents routinely expect their representatives to “bring projects home.” This expectation has become so entrenched that constituency projects are now treated as a core indicator of legislative performance.
Over time, what began as a political workaround has evolved into an institutionalised practice—one that sits uncomfortably with democratic norms and the constitutional role of the legislature.
In well-functioning democracies, legislators are not project executors. Their responsibilities are clearly defined and distinct from those of the executive arm of government. Ideally, legislators perform three core functions: lawmaking, oversight, and representation.
The foremost responsibility of any legislator is to make laws. This includes drafting, debating, amending, and passing legislation that addresses societal problems, protects citizens’ rights, and promotes development. Legislators are also expected to review existing laws, repeal obsolete provisions, and ensure that the legal framework aligns with constitutional values and public interest.
In mature democracies, legislators are assessed by the relevance, quality, and impact of the laws they sponsor or support—not by physical infrastructure bearing their names.
Oversight is one of the most critical, and most powerful, functions of a legislature. Acting on behalf of the people, legislators are meant to scrutinise the actions of the executive branch to ensure accountability, transparency, and value for money.
This includes monitoring how ministries, departments, and agencies (MDAs) spend public funds; investigating corruption, waste, or inefficiency; summoning ministers, commissioners, and heads of agencies; and approving or rejecting executive appointments and borrowing plans. In many established democracies, strong oversight is often more consequential than lawmaking itself.
Representation means articulating the interests, needs, and grievances of constituents within legislative chambers. It involves speaking up on issues affecting one’s constituency, lobbying for fair policies, and ensuring equitable distribution of public resources.
Crucially, it does not mean personally executing projects, awarding contracts, or distributing welfare items. Those responsibilities belong to the executive.
Despite this ideal framework, Nigeria has evolved a different reality. Legislative involvement in constituency projects has become so normalised that it is now embedded in the budgetary process itself.
At the federal level, constituency projects are implemented through the annual Appropriation Act. During budget preparation, lawmakers submit lists of projects they want located in their constituencies. These projects—often small-scale interventions such as boreholes, rural roads, classrooms, health centres, solar streetlights, or empowerment programmes—are inserted into the budgets of relevant MDAs.
On paper, the projects belong to the ministries and agencies under whose votes they appear. In practice, however, they are widely known and publicly branded as the projects of specific senators or members of the House of Representatives. Constituents often refer to them as “projects of Senator X” or “projects of Honourable Y,” even though legislators have no constitutional mandate to execute them.
After the budget is passed, MDAs handle procurement and implementation. Yet, in reality, lawmakers frequently exercise informal influence over project siting, contractor selection, and even monitoring. This blurring of roles weakens the legislature’s capacity to objectively oversee the same MDAs whose budgets it helped populate with constituency projects.
A similar pattern plays out at the state level. Members of State Houses of Assembly nominate projects that are embedded in state budgets, usually under ministries such as works, education, health, or local government affairs. At the local government level, councillors—despite their limited constitutional powers and budgets—are also expected by constituents to “attract projects,” further muddying the separation of roles.
Importantly, constituency projects are not explicitly provided for in the Nigerian Constitution. They exist instead as politically negotiated budgetary insertions—tolerated by the system, normalised by practice, and defended as a way of delivering the so-called “dividends of democracy.”
Several uniquely Nigerian factors explain why this practice has endured.
First, weak local government administration has left basic service delivery gaps at the grassroots. When primary healthcare centres collapse, classrooms decay, or rural roads become impassable, citizens turn to the nearest visible elected official—the legislator.
Second, widespread poverty and economic hardship push voters to demand immediate, tangible benefits rather than abstract outcomes like better laws or stronger institutions.
Third, civic education remains poor. Many citizens do not clearly understand the constitutional roles of legislators versus those of the executive, making it easy to conflate representation with project execution.
Fourth, Nigeria’s vote-buying and patronage-driven politics reward short-term, visible interventions over long-term governance reforms. A borehole commissioned before elections often counts for more politically than a well-crafted bill or a rigorous oversight hearing.
Finally, failures of the executive arm at various levels have encouraged legislators to step into spaces they were never meant to occupy, further weakening institutional boundaries.
In countries such as the United Kingdom, Canada, Germany, and South Africa, legislators do not execute projects. They focus on legislation, oversight, and representation. When an MP starts acting like a contractor or project manager, it raises ethical and governance concerns rather than applause.
When legislators become de facto project sponsors, oversight suffers. The incentive to rigorously question MDAs diminishes when lawmakers are invested—politically or personally—in projects executed by those same agencies. Corruption risks increase, accountability weakens, and the executive escapes proper scrutiny.
Democracy, in turn, becomes transactional: votes exchanged for projects, rather than trust built on institutions and policy outcomes.
Ideally, legislators should make laws, oversee the executive, and represent citizens—not compete with governors, ministers, or chairmen in project execution. Until civic awareness improves, institutions are strengthened, and roles are respected, Nigeria will continue to struggle with distorted expectations that undermine democratic effectiveness.
The true dividend of democracy is not a single borehole with a politician’s plaque, but strong laws, accountable governance, and institutions that work for citizens consistently—whether or not elections are around the corner.
