National Assembly
NASS passes Bill to empower it to summon president, governors
… Okays autonomy for local governments
The National Assembly has passed a bill for an act to alter the second schedule of the 1999 constitution which will grant NASS the powers to summon the president of Nigeria and state governors.
The bill was sponsored by Sergius Ogun (PDP–Edo). The bill grants both the Senate and the House of Assembly constitutional powers to invite the president and state governors for questioning.
The bill was passed on Tuesday during plenary on Tuesday with 305 “Ayes” surpassing and 3 “Nays”.
NASS also granted financial and administrative autonomy to all the local governments across Nigeria.
This was done when the lawmakers voted on 68 Constitution Amendment bills at their plenary. The voting was done electronically.
Both chambers of the National Assembly during voting on the Constitution Amendment voted in favour of Local Government administrative autonomy as a tier of government and guarantee their democratic existence and tenure.
In the House of Representatives, the bill to create a special account through which funds for local governments will be paid directly from the Federation Account had 257 ‘YES’ votes while nine persons voted ‘NO.’
For the local government autonomy, 258 members of the House of representatives voted ‘YES’ while 15 voted ‘NO’.
In the Senate Chamber, Local government financial autonomy had 92 ‘YES’ votes and two ‘NO’ votes.
