Former Senate President Bukola Saraki has reiterated the need for the independence of the legislature, describing it as critical to the survival of democracy.

Saraki, who was among the guests at the June 12, 2026, edition of The Platform, stated that lawmakers must be able to scrutinise proposals from the executive arm of government.

Speaking at the public lecture organised by the Covenant Nation, he noted that a legislature that simply receives and approves executive proposals without scrutiny has not fulfilled its constitutional mandate.

According to him, such a legislature merely performs a ceremonial function, warning that a democracy made only of echoes is just one election away from becoming something else entirely.

The former governor of Kwara State stated that the greatest danger to a free people is not a weak government, but an unchecked government - an authority that answers to no one and cannot be questioned.

Saraki explained that the framers of the Nigerian Constitution deliberately split power into three separate arms of government that are dependent on one another yet meant to be independent.

He noted that friction was built into the system on purpose to guarantee freedom, adding that the executive and the legislature are meant by constitutional design to challenge each other to ensure checks and balances.

According to him, the legislature serves as a shield for democracy, without which the system would be destroyed.

Referencing the significance of June 12, the former Senate President stated that democracy was not lost in 1993 because the people failed, but because the institutions that should have defended the people's verdict were too weak to do so.

He stressed that the remedy is not less politics, but stronger institutions, with the legislature standing at the centre of them.

Saraki warned that political tension does not vanish when suppressed but accumulates, noting that a society where grievances cannot find expression through its institutions will see those grievances vented on the streets.

He added that the legislature is built to let those voices be heard and resolved before they explode. Buttressing the importance of checks in government, Saraki recalled how the National Assembly under his leadership was able to track alleged irregularities in the fuel subsidy regime.

He recounted his experience in the 7th Senate when moving a motion on the fuel subsidy regime, noting that petroleum products were being imported using documents for vessels that were not actually in Nigeria.

The former Senate President, who served between June 9, 2015, and June 11, 2019, stated that he was able to track the vessels through the shipping register and discovered that a vessel supposedly at the Lagos port was actually in Colombia.

He noted that he subsequently challenged the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) to verify the vessels they paid for and their actual locations, highlighting the capacity of the legislature to effectively oversee government operations.