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The Director-General of the Nigeria Institute for Legislative and Democratic Studies (NILDS), Professor Abubakar Sulaiman during a 2-day training workshop on improved legislative drafting skills for effective law reform and law review for Chairman, Members and Staff of the Law Reform Commission of Kaduna State said NILDS is one of the world's premier academic and research institutions, NILDS supports the sustenance of dynamic and effective Legislature in Nigeria (at Federal, State and Local level), and the ECOWAS sub-region.

The DG, stressed that some of the objectives of the Institute are but not limited to act as a world-class multi-disciplinary institution capable of providing training, capacity building, research, policy analysis and extension services for the legislature at the Federal, State and Local government levels; To meet a long-felt need to provide the legislators and officials with institutionalized opportunities for problem-oriented studies and systematic training in the various disciplines of legislative institutions, processes and procedures; To improve the capacity of Legislators to sustain and consolidate democratic governance through deliberation and policy formulation. Improve the technical capacity of legislative staff, committee secretaries and political aides to process appropriation bills and policy oversight of the executive and to stock and improve the quality of relevant information, for members of the national and state assemblies and the general public through the dissemination of research output and the organization of consultative fora for the public sector, as well as representatives of the private sector and civil society.

He emphasised that the Institute has trained legislators from the National Assembly, State Houses of Assembly and Local Government Councils as well as parliamentarians from other African countries. He also pointed out that NILDS has trained bureaucrats from the National Assembly Service Commission and the various State’s Houses of Assembly Service Commission.
He explained that NILDS is well-positioned to train the commission and that the Institute has a well-qualified array of academic staff with requisite practical knowledge in diverse fields that help in so small measures to aid and assist the commission in the areas of training and capacity building. He, therefore, posited that NILDS has the wherewithal to meet all the expectations of the Commission.

Prof. Sulaiman, then delved into the importance of the legislative arm of government and carefully explained its law-making, representation and oversight functions. He avowed that the legislature is the most misunderstood arm of government as well as the most underdeveloped arm of government because of the incessant military intervention in politics of the past.

He appreciated the management and staff of the commission for availing themselves of the knowledge-based opportunities provided by NILDS and wished the participants fruitful deliberations.

The leader of the delegation and co-chairman of the commission, Mr. Chris Umar thanked the DG for the opportunities to tap from the fountain of knowledge of the Institute and said he also brought greetings from the Executive Governor of Kaduna State, Mallam Nasir El-Rufai.
He explained that the Governor wanted the Kaduna State Laws to be reviewed within the year, but he painstakingly explained to him that it would be practically impossible to achieve, but the commission will turn in the reviewed law next year, hence, the timely training they would be going through at the Institute.

Umar urged his colleagues to use the opportunity to ask all the questions on all gray areas during the training. The leader of the commission once again thanked the DG,NILDS, who he described as supportive and motivational, which has encouraged and motivated to sign up for the capacity building workshop.