TheCable

The house of representatives has withdrawn the police procurement (establishment) bill, earlier rejected by President Muhammadu Buhari.

The bill is among those which the lawmakers sought to override Buhari’s veto power on.

In a letter conveying his disapproval to the lawmakers, Buhari had said the bill lacked clarity regarding the manner of disbursement of funds.

He also questioned the constitutional powers of the national assembly to appropriate funds under the purview of the bill.

At plenary on Wednesday, when the bill was called for second reading, some of the lawmakers — who hitherto supported the bill — kicked against it.

But Francis Onyewuchi, its sponsor, insisted that the national assembly had the power to appropriate funds on behalf of the three tiers of government.

Femi Gbajabiamila, majority leader of the house, disagreed with him, saying it contradicts the provisions of the constitution.

Uzoma Nkem-Abonta from Abia state tried to salvage the bill by appealing to his colleagues that “the bill is too important to be allowed to die.”

He said rather than reject it, it should be allowed to scale through to the committee stage for the appropriate committee to remove all the contending issues.

Lasun Yusuf, the deputy speaker, said even with Abonta’s suggestion, considering the concern raised by the president has constitutional impediment, “it is either we amend the police act or we face the problem of nomenclature (federation account and consolidated account). It is more fundamental than we are looking at.”

Thereafter, Yakubu Dogara, speaker of the house, called the attention of the lawmakers to a similar bill already introduced by Olamide Oni from Ekiti which he said accommodates the concerns raised in the contentious bill.

He then urged Onyewuchi to consequently withdraw the bill, after which the lawmaker did so.

A similar bill — seeking to amend the electoral act and consequently reorder the sequence of elections — had also been dropped by the lower legislative chamber.