Tinubu signs 40 laws in first two years, 30 more than Buhari…. but governance impact unclear – Report

President Bola Tinubu has signed more bills into law in his first two years than the late former President Muhammadu Buhari did in the same period of his tenure, a review by Legis360 shows.

Legis360, an AI-driven platform transforming legislative engagement across Africa, authored the report in partnership with the Public Enlightenment Initiative and the Peering Advocacy and Advancement Centre in Africa (PAACA).

The report examines policy effectiveness and executive-legislative collaboration under the 10th National Assembly.

According to the report, Tinubu assented to 40 bills between June 2023 and May 2025—surpassing Buhari’s 14 bills signed in his first tenure between May 2015 and May 2017.

However, the report pointed out that the volume of laws passed has not necessarily translated into tangible governance outcomes.

Samuel Folorunsho, project lead for Legis360, who spoke to TheCable on Tuesday on the report, noted that the organisation’s mission is to bridge the gap between citizens and governance by making laws, policies, and decision-making processes more accessible, transparent, and participatory.

Folorunsho said through technology-driven solutions, the platform aims to empower African citizens, policymakers, and advocacy groups to promote accountability in governance.

“As to why we came up with the document, we noticed that there is an upward trend within the legislature that they celebrate bills that are passed more than bills that are assented,” he said.

“But from our analysis, everything that affects the people is more of the bills that got assented because those are the bills that now translate into law.

“So, we did a deep dive into over 40-plus bills, so we’re able to start to see a different kind of trend as to the current administration and the 10th assembly, because one of the key cross-cutting insights that we noticed while we were doing this analysis was to track legislative actions.”

The report primarily examines laws that have been formally passed by the 10th national assembly, offering what the authors describe as a grounded perspective of how governance plays out in practice.

“We designed it to help stakeholders to separate policy intent from policy that is actually delivered, because bills passed are policy intentions, but the ones assented are policies that are now delivering for the citizens,” Folorunsho added.

“Secondly, the focus of the report is to review priority areas and the power dynamics that is currently at play between the executives and the legislature, so by analysing those laws across different sectors, we were able to identify who initiates them, what the report shed light on and how the public is responding to some of these new laws.

“Thirdly, we wrote that report to equip stakeholders with data for their engagement, so civil societies working around key issues can now begin to tailor their engagement around the interests of the executive.

“Journalists can now have data to be able to now query some of this information. We are also looking to support journalists and researchers in the work that they do.”(The Cable)