Leadership / Nigeria: The Senate, yesterday, denied the ‘mysterious’ passage of a Grazing Reserves Commission Bill through second reading by the 8th Senate.
This was sequel to the alarm raised by the chairman, Senate Committee on Information, Senator Enyinnaya Abaribe, who questioned the authenticity of the speculation in the social media -that the National Grazing Commission had passed through second reading in the Senate.
The said Bill is thought to seek the establishment of a National Grazing Reserve Commission (NGRC) in the country.
Abaribe, who raised alarm, disclosed that he had received over 1,000 calls from members of his constituency and the public on the purported passage of the said Bill by the present Senate.
Abaribe, who maintained that there was nothing like such, demanded to know when the said Bill was passed by the 8th Senate.
“The Bill on grazing reserve was presented at the 7th Senate by Senator Zaynab Kure, who is no longer in the Senate, and ( the bill) was rejected,” Abaribe recalled.
“I got more than 1,000 calls over the weekend, and this has to do with something I consider not before the Senate, a phantom thing that is not before the Senate – something called the Grazing Reserves Commission, and everybody is calling me, and people are sending me text messages to the extent that when I explained to some of my constituents who called me, and said there is no such thing before the Senate, they now turned around and said ‘the only reason why you are saying so is that you never go to the Senate. You must be an absentee member’.
“And when I asked where this information is coming from, they said the information is coming from the social media. Mr President, the last time a grazing reserve commission bill came to this Senate was in the 7th Senate, and was proposed by Senator Kure, who is no longer in the Senate.”
Abaribe explained that he brought up the matter on the floor of the upper chamber so that his constituents in Abia South will know that there is no such bill called Grazing Reserve Commission Bill before the Senate.
He continued: “I have taken time to ask the Clerk and every other person to ask where is this Bill that has passed second reading, how did it pass Second Reading in my absence, and they said they also are in confusion they have never seen such thing.”
But reacting through a press statement after the plenary, the chairman,Senate Committee on Rules and Business, Senator Babajide Omoworare, said that such Bill had expired by June 6, 2015.
He said: “Several distinguished senators of the Federal Republic of Nigeria have been inundated with the request by the members of the public concerning the tendency of a National Grazing Bill in the Senate.
“This is to clarify that no such Bill has been presented by the executive arm of government, and none has so far been filed by any senator of the Federal Republic of Nigeria in the 8th Senate.
“For the avoidance of doubt, a ‘National Grazing Reserve Establishment and Development Commission Bill (SB. 60) was presented by Senator Zaynab Kure (Niger Central) during the 7th Senate (2011-2015), which has now expired by the operations of law on June 6, 2015 in furtherance of Section 64(1) of the 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria (as amended).”
