… Bill passes 2nd reading in Ekiti

Priscilla Ediare, Ado-Ekiti

The bill meant to ensure the safe operation of the Ekiti State Security Network Agency and Amotekun Corps, has passed through first and second readings at the House of Assembly 

The bill, had also been committed to the House Committee on Security, chaired by Lateef Akanle, representing Ekiti East Constituency II, for proper legislative scrutiny.

State Executive Council, yesterday, adopted the draft bill of the proposed law as a document of the state after deliberation at its weekly meeting, which lasted till 9.30pm before transmission to the Assembly for legislative perusal.

At the plenary of the House yesterday, it was a unanimous agreement that every Nigeria has right to life in line with Section 33 of the 1999 Constitution as espoused by Section 4 (C) of the Amotekun Bill which emphasised protection of lives and property as primary responsibility of security outfit.

Speaker Funminiyi Afuye said the House won’t violate the rules and standing order in quest to accord the bill expeditious passage.

“It has passed through the first and second readings. Both moral and jurisprudence aspects of the bill had been extensively debated. We have committed it to the Committee of the House, which will be holding a public hearing today (yesterday) at 2pm.

“We are still on course and in line with procedures of lawmaking. We have not breached any procedure and we won’t breach the procedure in passing the bill into law,” he said.

He said the bill will be passed into law today and directed the Majority Leader, Gboyega Aribisogan, who had earlier moved a motion for adjournment to next Tuesday, to amend the motion for adjournment to today.

The speaker charged the committee to be painstaking in the passage, saying: “We all know that internal and external migrations had caused banditry, kidnappings, robbery and insurgency in some African nations, Nigeria inclusive and solution to it by law is protection of lives and property.

“The insecurity in our territory had led to loss of lives, farmers are no longer safe. Even if you do commercial farming, some people will go there and destroy it and this has been reducing the resources of our people.

“Recently, someone was kidnapped and the family paid a ransom of N20 million, one can imagine the psychological and economic effects of this and that necessitated the Amotekun issue,” he said.