162 bills rot in House of Reps

NO LESS than 162 Bills, among which are reports and other vital legislative processes, stagnate in the House of Representatives.
The bills and committee reports were introduced for further legislative action since
2015.
Two years after, they are idling and abandoned by the various sponsors, a development that has slowed legislative works, checks by the Nigerian Pilot revealed.
This paper gathered that some of the reasons for the present state of the bills might not
be unconnected to two folds, one bothering on inadequate funding for the various committees to carry out the investigations, conduct public hearing as well as the human
factor on the part of the sponsor, who is either unequipped intellectually to continue the
process of actualizing the passage of the Act or sheer lack of commitment and absolute
laziness.
For instance, times abound when bills, motions, reports that are slated for consideration and listed on the ‘order paper’, but their considerations and debate are jettisoned or deferred because the sponsors are unavailable to lead debate or present the
bills or reports.

The consideration of reports on a Bill for an Act to Incorporate Annex 12 to the convention on International Civil Aviation,1944, into Nigeria Law, to establish the Nigerian Search and Rescue Service , and a report of the committee on information,
National Orientation, Ethics and Values on a Bill for an Act to Establish a National Agency for Ethic and Values, to provide for the function and powers of the Agency, the
qualification and procedures for appointments of chairman, and members and for related matters were recently deferred because the sponsors were absent in the chambers
This inertia on the part of some lawmakers is aptly demonstrated by the skeletal attendance of Honorable members to plenary sessions and consideration of reports at the ‘’committee of the whole’’ since resumption for the next legislative season, where the chambers hardly gets up to fifty members in attendance in a House of 360 Honorable members.
But going by the relevant House rule, Order 17(31) the speaker through the Chairman House committee on Rules and Business, Orker Jeff, could after a grace period of six months reorder that the bills, reports be dispossessed and committed to the “Committee of the Whole for accelerated consideration and passage.

Informed sources confided in this paper, stating that the speaker has directed that the
bills be treated after the 60days moratorium.
The source said that the Bills will begin to be listed for consideration in the committee of
the whole soon. Speaker Yakubu Dogara was quoted as saying that “bills cannot stagnate in the House” and warned that “if members don’t’ have a change of heart towards their legislative duties by giving attention to bill and reports, then the House will deal with them and pass them at the ‘’ committee of the whole’’.

NIGERIAN PILOT