Senate forward ‘Not too young to run’ bill to Buhari for assent

The senate has adopted the conference committee reports on the “Not too young to run” bill and 11 others.

The bills were adopted during plenary on Tuesday, following resolutions from state houses of assembly and sent for presidential assent.

Other bills are financial autonomy of state legislature, restriction of tenure of president and governors, timeline for the presentation of presentation of appropriation bill, determination of pre-election matters, submission from the judiciary, the Nigeria police force, political parties and electoral matters, authorisation of expenditure in absence of appropriation; the legislature, political parties and electoral matters.

In all, there are 33 bills seeking to alter various provisions of the constitution.

The senate had approved 29 of the bills while the house of representatives approved 21 of them. Seventeen of them were passed by the two chambers without differences and subsequently transmitted to the state houses of assembly for resolution.

The resolutions of the houses of assembly were then committed to a conference committee of both chambers for resolution and passage.

The not too young to run bill seeks to reduce the minimum age requirement for elective positions in the country.

It was first passed by the senate and the house of representatives in July 2017.

The bill seeks to reduce the age qualification for the office of the president from 40 years to 30 years; age for the office of a state governor from 35 to 30; senate from 35 to 30; house of representatives, from 30 to 25; and state house of assembly, from 30 to 25.