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National Assembly has started fresh legislative works on the Nigerian Peace Corps Establishment Bill, and has already passed first reading in the Senate and the House of Representatives.
The bill, which was passed for third reading during the 8th and 9th Assembly, and transmitted to the then President Muhammad Buhari, was not signed into law.
Under the current 10th NASS, the bill was reintroduced and passed for first reading in the House of Representatives on February 29, 2024 and transmitted to the Senate for concurrence was read on the floor of Red Chamber and passed through first reading on Tuesday, April 30.
With this development, a motion for concurrence to be sponsored by the Senate Leader, Senator Opeyemi Bamidele (APC Ekiti Central) will come up shortly to enable the Senate adopt the bill in line with the extant rules of the National Assembly.
The Peace Corps of Nigeria established over 25 years ago by the National Commandant, Dr. Dickson Akoh, is incorporated in Nigeria under the Company and Allied Matters Act (CAMA) and accorded the Federal Government recognition through the Federal Ministry of Youth Development and granted license to operate in the country as a non-governmental organization by the Federal Ministry of Finance, Budget and National Planning.
When it was obvious that Buhari was not going to sign the bill into law after two rigorous legislative works by both chambers, Akoh had appealed to the former President to bequeath a lasting parting gift to the Nigerian youth by assenting to a bill for the establishment of the organization a statutory body of the federal government.
Speaking to journalists on the development in Abuja, Akoh explained that the entire contents of the bill, especially the functions contained in the piece of legislation is a summation of an inclusive empowerment programmes for the youth and on how to harness their innate potentials for the over all tasks of nation-building.
According to him, the passage of the NPC Bill is not only timely, reassuring and a renewed hope for the Nigerian youth, but also a pointer to the fact that the political elites is still very much conscious of the social challenges confronting the youth and therefore, passionate on proffering solutions to the challenges to same in order to place the youth in the front burner of our national life.
Akoh said to underscore the high level of acceptability of the bill, opinion polls conducted in 2017 by The Nation newspaper, Naija.com and Nigerian Television Authority (NTA-Good Morning Nigeria) revealed that 89%, 76% and 97% respectively supported the establishment of the Nigerian Peace Corps.
Similarly, he said that Premium Times, an online publication and Punch Newspaper conducted opinion poll on the bill and returned a favourable verdict of 85% and 93% respectively in its support. (Nigerian Pilot)
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