Members of the House of
Representatives have reacted to the rejection of Nigerian Peace Corps Bill by
President Muhammad Buhari.
The President had, through a
letter dated 25th January 2018 and submitted to the House yesterday, cited
financial implications and duplication of duties of existing security agencies,
as reasons for withholding his assent.
Reacting to the development, a
member of the House of Representatives from Delta state, Hon. Ossai Nicholas
Ossai, said the decision of the President would further aggravate the security
challenges in the country, as the main objective of empowering the youths would
have been defeated.
Ossai, who spoke our
Correspondent in his office on Tuesday, said the House would sit and x-ray the
reasons that the president had given to see whether “they are reasonable or
probably not.”
“If the reasons given by Mr
president are not germane”, Ossai vowed that he will “personally lead a
lobbying process to make sure the House vetos him.”
“Between now and tomorrow
(Wednesday) be rest assured that we’ll come out with our opinion,” he said.
Similarly, the lawmaker
representing Mushin II constituency of Lagos state, Yusuf Ayinla, said the
issue must be looked at from the angle of unemployment.
The lawmaker who is of the All
Progressives Congress (APC), said the Bill will help tackle the menace of
unemployment in Nigeria.
“That Bill will help the
President himself for lifting zero employment to a better place,” he said.
Though the glory would have gone
to the President if he had appended his signature as one of his campaign
promises to create jobs for the youths, Ayinla said, “but it is now a free
opportunity for the National Assembly to take all the glory.”
He said the National Assembly
will have to “sit down and look at the reasons for the president’s refusal to
assent the bill and return it to him.”
He, however, said if it means
overriding the President, he will wholeheartedly support and append his
signature, saying he would not contribute to impeding whatever would benefit
the youths, whom he said constitute largely to his constituency in Lagos.
Another APC lawmaker, Rt. Hon
Goni Bukar Lawan representing Bursari/Gaida/Yunusar federal constituency of
Yobe State, said withholding assent was not an end to a Bill under democracy.
Lawan, who hails from Dapchi,
where over 100 school girls were abducted last week, said the abduction would
have been averted if there was presence of internal security in the school
premises.
He acknowledged that, the Bill
establishing Peace Corps gives the youths mandate to man schools across the
country for intelligence gathering and neighbourhood watch, which does not
overlap with any existing security agency.
Aside the Petroleum Investment
and Governance Bill (PIGB) which was passed by the Senate last year, the
Nigerian Peace Corps Establishment Bill 2017 appears to be the most popular
legislative piece and one of the greatest achievements of the 8th Assembly.
Recall that, during the
incarcerations of the National Commandant of Peace Corps of Nigeria, Amb. Dr.
Dickson Akoh, in the hands of security agencies last year, the Speaker of House
of Representatives, Rt. Hon. Yakubu Dogara, openly vowed that the National
Assembly would not hesitate to override Mr. President, should he refuse to sign
the Bill.
“If the president doesn’t assent
for whatever reason to the Peace Corps Bill, we are at liberty to recall it
back to parliament and muster the two-thirds in the House and Senate and pass
it in spite of Mr. President’s veto,” Dogara had said.
Dogara said the parliament will
not be distracted by the antics of existing security agencies, adding that the
country cannot spend too much on security.
He said the police and other
security agencies were acting in a manner similar to how they treated the
Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps, NSCDC, in the run up to its adoption
by the Olusegun Obasanjo administration.
Security agencies did not only
oppose the establishment of the NSCDC, its founder, Ade Abolurin, was also
arrested on numerous occasions.
Today, Mr. Dogara said, the NSCDC
had become a force for good in the country, perhaps even more than the police.
“That was the same argument when
the Civil Defence Bill was before the House, that it could not be funded, that
they were divulging some of the powers of the police to the Civil Defence, that
it would never work.
“At the end of the day all these
were surmounted and now we have the Civil Defence that in some cases some
citizens have said that they are more dependable than the conventional police.
“I see them everywhere I travel
to and they have become a pride of the society,” Dogara had said.
Though the letter transmitted to
the National Assembly on withholding of assent was only read on the floor of
the House, it is believed that the Senate receive the letter also.
As a legislative arm of
government, the National Assembly is empowered by the provisions of section
58(5) of the 1999 constitution as amended, to override the President’s veto on
Bills.
Section 58 (5) says, “Where the
President withholds his assent and the bill is again passed by each House by
two-thirds majority, the bill shall become law and the assent of the President
shall not be required”.
Order 12(b)(c) of the standing
rules of the House of Representatives (2016), also provides that, the rejected
Bill could be looked upon by the House, (through a motion) and if supported by
two-thirds of the Reps, the Bill is proclaimed law without the assent of the
President.
The first test of this
constitutional oversight of the National Assembly came to play in 2001, when
the then President Olusegun Obasanjo withheld his assent to the Niger Delta
Development Commission Establishment Bill (NDDC).
The National Assembly tested
their constitutional power and the Bill became law.
The establishment of the NDDC is
acclaimed by many as the catalyst to development and bargaining power of the
federal government in ending militancy and insecurity in the Niger Delta region
today.
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