BREAKING: Reps Reject Bill Seeking Life Pension For Speaker, Senate President, Others

• Reps have dismissed a bill seeking life pension for Speaker, Senate President and others.

• The House of Representatives on Tuesday rejected the constitutional amendment that seeks to bestow life pension on Senate President, Speaker and their Deputies.

EKO HOT BLOG reports that the bill failed to get the required 240 votes as provided in the 1999 constitution as amended.

The bill got 193 ‘No’ votes, while 162 lawmakers voted in support of the bill.

Read Also: BREAKING: Senate OKs LG Autonomy Bill

There was wild jubilation from members of the House when the result came up on the screen.

Recall that the National Assembly was propelling a bill to grant life pension for its presiding officers.

These include the Senate President, Deputy Senate President, Speaker of the House of Representatives and the Deputy Speaker.

And the proposal to add the principal officers of the National Assembly to this list has resurfaced after it was suspended the first time it came up following public outcry.

It was learnt that the current leadership of the National Assembly, comprising the Senate President, Ahmad Lawan; Speaker of the House of Representatives, Femi Gbajabiamila; and their deputies may be the first to benefit.

The National Assembly’s Joint Special Ad Hoc Committee on the Review of the 1999 Constitution disclosed this last Wednesday.

The Committee presented its report, containing 68 recommendations in the respective chambers, and the proposal was one of them.

However, the house of representatives have shelved the bill after the bill failed to get the required votes.

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