In a reaction that implied indolence and cluelessness on the part of the current administration, Senate President Bukola Saraki revealed that President Muhammadu Buhari presented only eleven bills to the National Assembly since May 2015 when he took office. The eleven bills are apart from the statutory budgets related bills.
Saraki was responding to allegations by Bola Tinubu, national leader of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), that the Saraki-led National Assembly was corrupt and antagonistic to the presidency.
Tinubu, in a statement released by his media office on Sunday evening, claimed both Saraki and House Speaker, Yakubu Dogara “stymied APC legislative initiatives while attempting to hoist noxious reactionary and self-interested legislation on the nation.”
“In the four years of the Buhari administration, it has only forwarded 11 bills to the Senate,” Yusuph Olaniyonu Special Adviser, Media and Publicity to Senate President said in a statement. Of the eleven bills presented by the president, only two, the Mutual Assistance in Criminal Matters Bill and the National Minimum Wage Bill, have been passed. “One of the bills, the Money Laundering Prevention and Prohibition Act (amendment) Bill was withdrawn by the executive following the disagreement between the Attorney General and the Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC),” Saraki said. “Also, another one, the National Water Resources Bill was rejected because it infringed on the rights of states to develop their water resources.”
The remaining seven which are the National Centre for Disease Control and Prevention Establishment Bill, Federal Institute of Industrial Research for the Development of Micro, Small and Large Industries Bills, the Suppression of Piracy Bill, Communications Service Tax Bill, 2015; Federal Institute of Industrial Research Bill, 2017; Raw Materials Research and Development Council (Repeal and Re-enactment Bill 2018; Nigeria Natural Medicine Development Agency (Establishment etc) Bill, 2018 — are at various stages of passage.”
The Senate president, who lost his re-election bid in February, said his tenure “has passed 282 bills (the highest any Senate had passed is 129 bills recorded by the 5th Senate)” since the inauguration of the eighth assembly in June 2015.
