Nigeria Content Online

Following
Wednesday’s passage of the second amendment to the 1999 constitution by
both chambers of the National Assembly, the Senate on Thursday set up a
six man committee to harmonize the bill with the Rep’s version.

The committee is
headed by Victor Ndoma-Egba (PDP Cross River state) and will join a
similar committee made up Rep members to harmonize the differences in
the bill.

It is a crucial step in the law making process to ensure the enactment of a single copy of bill.

“What is passed in
the House is different from what we passed,” the Senate President,
David Mark said. “This committee is to harmonize it.” The Senate voted
on ten clauses and passed the bill on Wednesday providing the
Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) new time-lines and
allowing the Supreme Court to handle Governorship election petition
cases.

The House of
Representatives, however, only passed the new time-lines for INEC and
did not discuss the court of finality in governorship election petition
cases.

Waiting on the states

Other members of
the Conference Committee set up by the Senate yesterday include
Senators Dahiru Umar, Ikechukwu Obiorah, Sola Akinyede, Abubakar
Sodangi and Idris Umar.

The names of the
members of the committee were announced by the Senate President, after
the bill was read the third time during plenary session yesterday.

Whenever the two chambers are through with harmonizing the bill,
clean copies would be sent to the 36 State Houses of Assembly for
endorsement. Two-Third of the votes of 36 State Houses of Assembly is
required for the alteration to become law.