Bankole Taiwo, Abeokuta
Ogun State House of Assembly on Thursday conducted a concurrent voting on the 44 bills transmitted to the State Legislature by the National Assembly, approving the Bill providing financial independence for State Houses of Assembly, State Judiciary, Local Government and others authorising the name change for Egbado North and South Local Government Areas amongst others.
The approval followed the adoption of the report of the Committee of the Whole House Chaired by the Speaker, Olakunle Oluomo, as presented by his Deputy, Akeem Balogun, who also moved the motion for its adoption, was seconded by the Majority Leader, Yusuf Sheriff and supported by other lawmakers.
The report partly reads, “Having carefully listened to the in-depth review of the bills, the Stakeholders present at the forum took turn to give their reasons for urging the House to favour all the proposed alterations vide the bills as presented. It is their belief that the democratic tenets in our constitution would be further strengthened as well as deepened.
All the Stakeholders at the forum unanimously agreed that all the 44 proposed (Bills) alterations considered should be given accelerated concurrence by the House and same transmitted to the National Assembly for onward transmission to Mr. President for his assent, so that the efforts and financial implications put into the 5th Alterations by various Stakeholders involved in the exercise will not be wasted and that the principle of separation of powers among the three tiers if government will be guaranteed.”
The legislative process at the plenary saw to the consideration and adoption of the alteration bills by the Committee of the whole House, after which the lawmakers embarked on physical voting for each of the bills, which was counted by the Clerk and Head of Legislative Service, Deji Adeyemo.
Other bills approved by the lawmakers included a bill to abrogate the State Joint Local Government account and provide for a Special account into which shall be paid, all allocations due to Local Government Councils from the Federation account and from the government of the State; and for related matters.
This is just as a bill to establish Local Government as a tier of Government and guarantee their democratic existence, tenure; as well as a bill to compel persons to obey or comply with Legislative Summons and that which sought the establishment of State Security Council were also passed.
The Assembly equally passed a bill meant to establish the Office of the Accountant- General of the Federal Government separate from the Office of the Accountant-General of the Federation, likewise another establishing the Office of the Attorney-General of the Federation and of the State Separate from the Office of the Minister of Justice or Commissioners for Justice of a State in order to make the Offices of Attorneys-General independent and insulated from partisanship.
Also, the lawmakers supported the passage of a bill to provide for independent candidacy in Presidential, Governorship, National Assembly, State Houses of Assembly and Local Government Councils Elections.