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To inquire – often with a vague hint of derision – into the legacy that Senator Godswill Akpabio might leave as president of Nigeria’s tenth senate is to display a worrying indifference to recent legislative history.
The documentation is neither obscure nor ambiguous. Under his leadership, the Senate has passed more than 90 bills, of which more than 58 have already received presidential assent.
This is not a statistic easily dismissed, even by the most committed cynics. You are encouraged to check these figures and raise the alarm if they prove less than accurate.
If the question arises from ignorance rather than malice, then this is an appropriate time to clarify the situation. After all, this document speaks clearly enough for itself, without requiring embellishment; just recognition.
For citizens weary of hype and hungry for facts, here are eleven key findings that stand up to scrutiny. Taken together, they reveal that the Senate is not merely spending its time in office, but is deliberately shaping a consequential and lasting legacy.
1. Improvement of the legal framework governing elections
With the recent passage of the Elections (Amendment) Bill, 2025, the catalog of key laws passed by the Tenth Senate has once again intensified. This landmark piece of legislation directly addresses critical areas for improvement in Nigeria’s democratic process, introducing provisions that improve the transparency of performance management and the credibility of party primaries. By refining the legal framework that governs elections, the Senate has moved beyond reactive patchworks to proactively strengthen the very foundations on which representative governance rests. This is a declaration that the health of Nigeria’s democracy is a permanent and urgent legislative priority.
As evidenced by the recently amended law, the Tenth Senate has been particularly industrious, legislating with intention. Always with constant attention to the intricate machinery of the State.
2. Restore healthcare and budget scale
Perhaps the most underestimated, yet significant achievement of the Akpabio-led Senate is the restoration of fiscal order. By promptly approving the 2024 and 2025 budgets and re-establishing Nigeria’s adherence to a January to December budget cycle, the Senate has restored key governance discipline. This is not simple clerical cleansing; it is an economic signal. Investors plan based on calendars, not excuses. Ministries execute when timescales are predictable. The ₦49.7 trillion budget for 2025, a bold leap in scale, reflects a state that has finally recognized the scale of its challenges and responded with commensurate ambition. We can argue about the numbers, but the process has become serious again. It’s the sound of a heavy door being shut firmly on an era of chronic procrastination.
3. Ministerial screening with teeth
Gone are the days when ministerial confirmations resembled ceremonial nods, ritual handshakes and rehearsed platitudes. Under this Senate, projections have turned into substantive commitments. Candidates are rigorously questioned on their vision, consistency and intricate delivery mechanisms. Political literacy has become crucial. Track records are scrutinized, not simply told. The message is clear and long overdue: holding a position is not synonymous with understanding it. From the beginning, the Senate has said that executive authority must be accompanied by intellectual weight, not simply political credentials.
4. Legislate for a modern economy
To be unequivocally clear, the Tenth Senate has shown a renewed zeal for structural reform. The amendment to the Electricity Law, which strengthens decentralization in energy production and distribution, directly addresses one of Nigeria’s most stubborn growth constraints. It is supported by the Nigeria Tax Act and the Data Protection Act, measures that modernize tax administration and safeguard the digital economy. These are not ostentatious laws; they are supporting beams for a twenty-first-century economy that seeks to transcend oil dependence, improvisation, and the thick administrative fog that has long impeded progress.
5. A proactive safety posture
Security was not treated simply as a rhetorical device but as a legislative obligation. Through focused committee work, national security dialogues, and legislation such as the Small Arms and Light Weapons Control Act, the Senate has targeted the supply lines of insecurity. The Defense Industries Corporation Modernization Act represents a deeper change: a transition from perpetual dependence to long-term self-sufficiency. It represents the distinction between reacting to threats and cultivating the ability to deter them. A subtle but vital recalibration.
6. Embrace the constitutional moment
If history proves kind, the ongoing constitutional review process could define this Senate more profoundly than any single bill. By reopening fundamental discussions on state police, fiscal federalism and the autonomy of local governments, the legislator preferred arduous work rather than convenient evasions. These are not simply academic exercises; they are the unresolved dilemmas at the heart of Nigeria’s chronic instability. Engaging them seriously means accepting that nation-building is often deeply uncomfortable before it becomes rewarding.
7. Institutionalize the fight against corruption
This Senate seems to grasp, instinctively, that corruption cannot be defeated with indignation but with planning. Strengthening legal frameworks through reforms such as the Fiscal Accountability and Transparency Law and the Police Professionalism and Accountability Law, he focused on systems rather than slogans. The goal is unglamorous but effective: embed integrity in procurement, budgeting and law enforcement itself, thus stripping corruption of its hiding places.
8. Fiscal management in the era of debt
Loan requests have multiplied. The Senate’s response was neither blind obstruction nor formal approval. Instead, it exercised control, conditionality, and a persistent demand for value. This is the delicate art of co-governance: supporting the executive when warranted, reacting when prudent and repeatedly raising the often unfashionable question of sustainability. It is not a dramatic work; it is the patient and responsible work of trusteeship.
9. Legislate for the human dimension
In the context of a major macroeconomic recalibration, the Senate has kept the focus on the citizens. The Student Loans Act expands access to higher education at a time when family incomes are under great pressure. The National Minimum Wage Raise Act is a direct legislative recognition of the dignity of work in an economy ravaged by inflation. These are not miracle solutions; however, they represent deliberate attempts to mitigate the most acute aspects of the hardship and to invest in people, who continue to be Nigeria’s most abundant and renewable resource.
10. Infrastructure as a legislative priority
By prioritizing approvals, oversight, and enabling legislation for large infrastructure projects, particularly in energy and defense, the Senate has treated infrastructure not as an executive indulgence but as a national imperative. Roads, energy networks and security resources don’t just eat up budgets; they generate jobs, unlock productivity and stabilize communities. The Senate’s role in facilitating these paths is not peripheral; it is central.
11. The quiet power of stable leadership
Perhaps the most underestimated outcome is institutional stability itself. Akpabio’s instinct for realpolitik, combined with his understanding of the intricate calculus of regional and political balance, has fostered a chamber that debates, negotiates and, ultimately, works. In a political climate where friction often results in paralysis, this relative consensus has served as an essential lubricant in the engine. It may not be glamorous, but it is, quite simply, indispensable.
A legacy forged in the work of the possible.
Senator Godswill Akpabio is not given to lyricism about politics. He is, rather, a consolidator – an institutional mechanic with a reformer’s appetite – who understands that in a sprawling and contentious democracy like Nigeria, progress is rarely the fruit of moral exhibitionism. It is most often the product of negotiation, arithmetic, persuasion, and, when necessary, unsentimental compromise. Purists, who prefer the hygiene of opposition to the burden of responsibility, might call this duplicity. Those familiar with governance call it reality.
The distance between regulations and village squares remains stubbornly wide. Hunger was not eliminated by law. Insecurity has not been updated sine die. The test of the seriousness of any Senate lies not in the eloquence of its debates but in the execution of its laws – whether ink becomes infrastructure, whether clauses become commerce, whether earmarks become reality. However, to dismiss this Senate as irrelevant is to ignore the tools it has deliberately created and placed at its fingertips. Laws do not implement themselves; they require administrative will and bureaucratic expertise across the vast state apparatus.
What the Tenth Senate, under Akpabio, has provided – quickly and carefully – is architecture. At a time when institutional paralysis is too often mistaken for normality, he chose to function. This decision, prosaic as it may seem, is no small achievement in a political culture where dysfunction can masquerade as authenticity.
As 2027 approaches, bringing with it the predictable turbulence of democratic contestation, the Akpabio-led Senate deserves evaluation by the cold parameters of substance rather than by the warm currents of sentiment. Nations are not built by vibrations, nor sustained by viral outrage. They are built incrementally: by statutes, by procedures, by institutions that confront disorder and, stubbornly, insist on functioning. In an era where Nigeria has too often flirted with drift, the deliberate choice to govern – to keep the constitutional machinery in motion – may prove not just a legacy, but the indispensable precondition for any legacy.
•Rt Hon Eseme Eyiboh mnipr, is the Special Adviser on Media/Publicity and Official Spokesperson to the President of the Senate.
