Senate to revisit rejected bills as army varsity’s scales first reading

The Senate is to revisit those bills passed by the ninth Assembly but declined assent by President Muhammadu Buhari.  The move is to review the observations and objections of the presidency to avoid similar slips in future.

Consequently, the lawmakers resolved to ensure such evaluations take care of all the issues in the objections and observations while public hearing on them would be bypassed to save time and cost.

Senate President Ahmad Lawan spoke after the debate on the bill seeking to establish the Federal University of Health Sciences, Otukpo (FUHSO) sponsored by Abba Moro.

He noted: “Bills that we almost finished processing should be fast-tracked by taking out the public hearing which will cost us time and resources. So we need to look at those bills that were fully passed by the National assembly but were not assented to.”

The nation’s number three citizen also yesterday implored service chiefs to beef up security around the National Assembly following the sight of strange faces within the premises in recent times.

He made the appeal during an emergency meeting between the leadership of the legislature and security officials in Abuja.

Moro had observed that the country had 72,000 nationally registered medical doctors, with only 35,000 practising and serving a population of approximately two hundred million people.

Meanwhile, a bill for the establishment of the Nigerian Army University in Biu, Borno State passed first reading on the floor of the red chamber.

It was sponsored by chairman of the chamber’s Committee on Army, Ali Ndume.

Besides, the upper legislative chamber yesterday confirmed Captain Musa Shuaibu Nuhu as Director-General of the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA).

His confirmation followed the consideration of the report of its Committee on Aviation headed by Smart Adeyemi.