Abstract:
The pivotal role of the legislature as the law making body in all democracies is further reinforced by its duty of legislative oversight on the other two arms of government. This important role which is meant to ensure that the implementation of the law reflects the legislative intent, usually pitch the legislature against the executive in even older and emerging democracies like Nigeria. The instrument of legislative oversight has been employed since the return to democratic rule in 1999 in Nigeria. Unfortunately, the Nigerian National Assembly has not been seen to have performed this role creditably because of the Nigerian political environment.. The key objective of this study therefore, is to assess the role of the political environment on the performance of legislative oversight role by the Nigerian National Assembly. Qualitative data for the study was obtained through secondary sources, which was analyzed using content analysis. Since the issue of oversight involves the actions, struggles, bargaining and negotiations between two arms, the Game theory was used as the theoretical framework for the study. The findings indicate that the party system, the nature of politics, legislative capacity, political capacity and the character of the state have all conspired to adversely affect the ability of the National Assembly to perform its role in this direction. In the light of the above, it is recommended that there is need for serious changes in the party system, the nature of politics and character of the state, while both the legislative and political capacity of the Nigerian National Assembly need to be highly enhanced for it to be able to perform its oversight functions well.
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