FEDERAL lawmakers are again smarting for a showdown with their leadership and the presidency once they resume from their annual vacation.
The mutual ethnic suspicion in the polity will again reverberate in the consideration of the controversial National Water Resources Bill 2020, Nigerian Tribune investigation revealed. The bill which was shut down in the eighth National Assembly under the leadership of Senator Bukola Saraki and Honourable Yakubu Dogara, Senate president and speaker, House of Representatives respectively has since resurrected in the National Assembly.
Nigerian Tribune checks revealed that the bill, though passed by the eight Assembly under Yakubu Dogara, it could not secure the concurrence of the Senate under Bukola Saraki and was ultimately denied the presidential assent. The bill has since passed first and a second reading under the current House of Representatives led by Honourable Femi Gbajabiamila.
Awaiting third reading and final passage, the document vests the power over all water sources across the federation in the executive. The bill seeks to bring all water resources (surface and underground) and the banks of the water sources under the control of the Federal Government through its agencies to be established by the bill.
Speaking with the Nigerian Tribune, Senator representing Osun Central and chairman, Senate Committee on Media and Public Affairs, Senator Ajibola Basiru, said the bill has not been brought before the Senate. The president of the Senate, Ahmad Lawan, had last July in the course of screening of ministerial nominees dropped hint that the Senate under his leadership was anxious to see the bill reintroduced.
The Senator representing Yobe North had during the screening of former Water Resources bill Minister, Suleiman Adamu, expressed the readiness of the Red Chamber to ensure its passage if reintroduced. In his own reaction, member representing Ijebu North/ Ijebu East/Ogun Waterside Federal Constituency of Ogun State, Honourable Adekoya Adesegun Abdel-Majid (PDP), said that the bill would never see the light of the day, considering its obnoxious provisions.
In his own submission, a member representing Ethiope Federal Constituency of Delta State (PDP), Ben Igbakpa, said he could not say much on the bill for now until the House resumes from the current recess. Another lawmaker who spoke with the Nigerian Tribune under anonymity described National Water Resources Bill as a litmus test to prove to Nigerians that the ninth National Assembly is not a rubber stamp to the executive, but rather an independent and important arm of government being the voice of the voiceless.
He cautioned that the passage of the bill could multiply ethnic militias in the country, noting that land acquisition “remains a volatile issue in Nigeria. The controversial National Water Resources Bill, 2020 was passed along with 10 others, which seek to establish ‘Federal Medical Centres in Lokoja, Makurdi, Nguru, Owerri, Owo, Umuahia, Yenagoa, Abakaliki as well as Nigerian Council for Social Work (Establishment) Bill and National Institute of Credit Administration, following the adoption of a motion on the ‘Reconsideration of Outstanding 11 Bills from the Preceding Assembly,’ sponsored by Honourable Abubakar Hassan Fulata last month before the House adjourned for the two- month annual recess.
According to Honourable Fulata, the motion was pursuant to Order 12, Rule 18 of the “Standing Orders of the House of Representatives”, which notes that “legislative businesses of the House by a Committee of the House which remain undetermined at the end of the assembly shall be resumed and proceeded with in the next assembly in the same manner as if the tenure of the Assembly had not come to an end, if the House resolves in the affirmative that such bills, upon being re-gazetted, be reconsidered in the Committee of the Whole without being commenced de-novo.”
Speaker of the House of Representatives, Femi Gbajabiamila, however, dismissed insinuation that legislative procedures were being observed in the breach to ensure speedy passage of the controversial bill. A media aide to Gbajabiamila who spoke in confidence with Nigerian Tribune said his principal has no vested interest in the bill.
Another member of the House of Representatives, Honourable Uzoma Nkem-Abonta who spoke against the bill in the eight Assembly, expressed grave concern over the manner in which the bill has since regained steam in the ninth Assembly.
He maintained that the 9th assembly should not be in a hurry to pass any law. The deputy chairman, House Committee on Petroleum Resources (Upstream) in the eighth assembly, Honourable Mark Gbillah, warned that the bill if passed into law would cede most parts of Lagos State to the Federal Government.
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