Amid ongoing protest by the House of Representatives over alleged persistent delay in passage of bills presented before the senate, the lawmakers in the red chamber have disclosed that prolonged deliberation on bills submitted by the lower chamber was to ensure due diligence on the matter brought before it by the green chamber.
It stated that it would never joke with any legislative initiative or request from the House of Representatives, saying the due diligence often done on the bills were for the interest of the public.
According to the lawmakers, the Senate considered at least six of such concurrence bills recently, to strengthen democratic system of governance in the country.
They stated this on Tuesday while clarifying allegations by the House of Representatives that the red chamber persistently delayed in granting concurrence to most legislative initiatives emanating from the green chamber.
The senate stated this after the House of Representatives had resolved to suspend further consideration of bills originating from the Senate, citing persistent delays in the red chamber’s concurrence to House-passed legislation.
The lower chamber had further accused the Senate of deliberately stalling the legislative process, citing its failure to act on over 140 bills passed by the House of Representatives, many of which were sponsored by its Speaker, Abbas Tajudeen.
President of the Senate, Godswill Akpabio, and leader of the senate, Opeyemi Bamidele, made these clarifications during the plenary in the Senate Chamber, National Assembly Complex, Abuja.
At the plenary, they rejected the claims of the House of Representatives, revealing that the Senate considered at least six concurrence bills that emanated from the green chamber in the immediate past week.
Akpabio, specifically, said the upper chamber “cannot joke with concurrence bills from the House of Representatives,” saying the Senate would continue to work, as effectively as possible, with lawmakers in the green chamber.
The senate president, therefore, said: “It takes two hands to clap. We have been attending to the bills from the House of Representatives. We are still going to attend to them. And we will continue to work together in the interest of Nigeria and Nigerians.”
While presenting one of the bills from the House of Representatives at the plenary, Bamidele said the first two businesses of the day “are concurrence bills from the House of Representatives.”
Bamidele further said: “I just want to put it on record that without attempting to respond to what was published in some newspapers about the Senate not working on concurrence bills from the House of Representatives.
“For the record, we have been doing what we are supposed to do. Only last week, the Senate concurred to six bills from the House of Representatives. We know we have the principle of reciprocity that governs our operations. But this does not necessarily mean garbage in, garbage out.
“We have the duty, as the foremost democratic institution in the country, to exercise due diligence on the bills. We will continue to consider concurrence bills from the House of Representatives the same way they considered our own bills. We will ensure that it is given attention in overriding public interest. I just want to say this for the record.
