The house of representatives has
withdrawn the police procurement (establishment) bill, earlier rejected by
President Muhammadu Buhari.
The bill is among those which the
lawmakers sought to override Buhari’s veto power on.
In a letter conveying his
disapproval to the lawmakers, Buhari had said the bill lacked clarity regarding
the manner of disbursement of funds.
He also questioned the
constitutional powers of the national assembly to appropriate funds under the
purview of the bill.
At plenary on Wednesday, when the
bill was called for second reading, some of the lawmakers — who hitherto
supported the bill — kicked against it.
But Francis Onyewuchi, its
sponsor, insisted that the national assembly had the power to appropriate funds
on behalf of the three tiers of government.
Femi Gbajabiamila, majority
leader of the house, disagreed with him, saying it contradicts the provisions
of the constitution.
Uzoma Nkem-Abonta from Abia state
tried to salvage the bill by appealing to his colleagues that “the bill is too
important to be allowed to die.”
He said rather than reject it, it
should be allowed to scale through to the committee stage for the appropriate
committee to remove all the contending issues.
Lasun Yusuf, the deputy speaker,
said even with Abonta’s suggestion, considering the concern raised by the
president has constitutional impediment, “it is either we amend the police act
or we face the problem of nomenclature (federation account and consolidated
account). It is more fundamental than we are looking at.”
Thereafter, Yakubu Dogara,
speaker of the house, called the attention of the lawmakers to a similar bill
already introduced by Olamide Oni from Ekiti which he said accommodates the
concerns raised in the contentious bill.
He then urged Onyewuchi to
consequently withdraw the bill, after which the lawmaker did so.
A similar bill — seeking to amend
the electoral act and consequently reorder the sequence of elections — had also
been dropped by the lower legislative chamber.
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