House Cautions Members against Plagiarising Bills

House Cautions Members against Plagiarising Bills

03 Dec 2015

Speaker, Hon. Yakubu Dogara
 Damilola Oyedele in Abuja 

 The leadership of the House of Representatives on Wednesday cautioned its members against plagiarising past bills in what it termed ‘legislative plagiarism.’

The Speaker, Hon. Yakubu Dogara, directed the House Committee on Rules and Business to look into the matter, which he described as a very serious one, that would not be allowed.

 This followed a point of order raised by the Majority Leader, Hon. Femi Gbajabiamila who alleged that some members of the lower chamber where in the habit of digging up old bills in past assemblies, and substituting the name of the original author with theirs.
This attitude, Gbajabiamila said, is an infringement of the intellectual property rights of others.
“There is a trend in this Assembly which is legislative plagiarism whereby names of original authors of bills and motions were substituted and replaced with their own. This is so bad that some went up to the fifth assembly to search for past motions and bills and that is why you see a legislator within four months having 40 bills.

 The House Leader noted that the practice is detrimental to the enhancement of quality legislation, which involves a lot of research.
If a member is doing his research properly, there is no way he can come up with 40 bills or motions in four months, Gbajabiamila said.

 He added that the practice also puts to question the essence of representation of the lawmakers by their constituents.
“This becomes a challenge for other members from the same constituency because they will be asked what they are doing when the other one is presenting so many bills. This is a new era of change, and we must be seen to have imbibed the change,” he said.
“Even if you must pick other people’s motion, at least acknowledge the original author of the bill. It is my opinion that we come up with original bills and stop infringing on the intellectual property of others. This trend must stop,” Gbajabiami