The focus will be on the National Assembly as 109 senators and 360 members of the House of Representatives begin electronic voting on the constitutional amendment today.
The ad hoc committees on the constitutional amendments led by Deputy Senate President Ovie Omo-Agege and Deputy Speaker Ahmed Idris Wase had last week separately submitted the harmonised versions of their reports to the two chambers of the parliament.
Nigeria’s First Lady, Aisha Buhari was at both chambers of the National Assembly to show her support and solidarity for some of the bills which covered the interests of women.
Deputy Senate President, Ovie Omo-Agege, last week after submission of the report announced that electronic voting on the report would hold today.
In the same vein, Speaker Femi Gbajabiamila also announced to lawmakers that electronic voting on the constitutional amendment report will hold today.
Gbajabiamila, who announced this on the floor of the House, said all members were expected to vote for the relevant clauses under consideration.
He said no member of the House was permitted to embark on oversight or committee assignment on the two days assigned for the constitution amendment process.
Meanwhile, Civil Society Legislative Advocacy Centre (CISLAC) has cautioned lawmakers to avoid voting on self-centred clauses that would not be in the overall public interest.
Executive Director of CISLAC Auwal Rafsanjani in an interview, yesterday, particularly urged the National Assembly to perish the idea of voting on the aspects seeking immunity for principal officers of the parliament as well as payment of pension and gratuities for principal officers.
“I think one of the major cautions is for the National Assembly to avoid voting on those self-centred clauses that have nothing to do with promoting good governance in Nigeria.
“For example, they are voting to have immunity for National Assembly principal officers; this is unacceptable as it will not allow room for accountability.
“We are calling on them to steer away from such a move. Such is tantamount to expanding lack of accountability by government officials. We are looking for ways to reduce the immunity we have for the president, vice president, governors and deputy governors. Increasing the number of those covered by immunity, we will see impunity, so, we don’t need that.
“The second issue is that they are trying to put pensions and gratuities for them; this also amounts to robbing the nation’s economy and the Nigerian people because they are being paid heavily so why should they vote for pensions and gratuities?
“They are allocating a lot of money to themselves and now, they want to collect pensions and gratuities. We are cautioning them to stay away from this also,” he said.
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