Nigeria Content Online

The
House of Representatives, yesterday, began hearings for a proposed law
that will scrap Nigeria’s current nuclear safety-centered legislation
and allow a national development of nuclear energy.

The law, if passed,
will equip the Nigeria Nuclear Regulatory Authority, which is currently
focused on the nuclear safety and radiation protection, with the
capacity to search for and develop a national capacity for nuclear
energy production as adopted by the federal government in 2005.

The government
reached the more technically and politically charged decision of
nuclear energy in January 2005, beginning the cultivation for the
acquisition of nuclear power plants for electricity generation.

Safety standards

The House of
Representatives chairman on petroleum resources, Bassey Out, whose
committee is saddled with the responsibility of fashioning the law,
said nine years after the starting of the NNRA, the Act setting it up
has turned up with openings that make it incapable to meet with
international standards for such development.

“It has been tested
and found not to satisfy and meet with international safety standards
for the radiation protection, nuclear safety, security and safeguards,”
he said.

The major challenge
of the present Act, according to the committee, is to fashion
adaptation to global rules on the proliferation and usage of nuclear
materials for peaceful purposes.

The law will also
accord the International Atomic Energy Agency(IAEA) the right and
obligation to ensure the safeguards are applied in accordance with the
terms of the legislation.