President Muhammadu Buhari is expected to approve the Nigerian Peace Corps bill on or before May 11, before leaving office.
Naija News learnt that the National Assembly forwarded the bill to the president’s desk this week.
Both the Senate and House of Representatives deliberated on the bill at different plenary sittings and respectively passed the same before it was forwarded to President Buhari for assent.
An authoritative source, according to Vanguard, confirmed that the transmission of the bill for Presidential assent by the Clerk to the National Assembly ( CNA), Sani Tambuwal, was contained in a letter dated April 12.
Three copies of the authenticated copies of the bills, the source added, were forwarded to the President for assent, one of which is expected to be retained by him and the other two sent back to the National Assembly for further action.
Naija News understands that the 1999 Constitution gives a 30 days window for the President to decide on such a bill.
The Bill, if assented to, the existing Peace Corps of Nigeria, which had been operating on a template of volunteerism over the years, will now be Federal Government owned and funded Agency in the name of Nigeria Peace Corps.
It could be recalled that the bill passed the third reading after Sadiq Umar, chairman of the senate committee on Interior, presented a report on April 12, 2022.
The bill is being sponsored by Ali Ndume, the senator representing Borno North. While presenting the report on the floor of the Senate on Tuesday, Umar reportedly said his committee received “hundreds of memoranda” from stakeholders who are supporting the passage of the legislation.
The senator said the bill, if passed and assented to by the president, would help tackle rising unemployment in the country.
After presenting his report, the senate went into the “committee of the whole”, where they considered and passed 40 sections of the bill.
It could also be recalled that in 2018, President Buhari rejected the bill, citing security concerns and the financial burden of funding the organisation.
But Ndume reintroduced the bill in 2019, arguing that the concerns raised by Buhari had been addressed in the new bill.
The bill passed its first reading shortly after the ninth national assembly led by Senate President Ahmad Lawan was inaugurated.
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