News Post

The Upper Legislative Chamber on Tuesday, October 3, 2017 deliberated upon and passed five Motions. Among the Motions that got the legislative approval of the law-makers include:

1) The need to construct Captive Dams in all Communities across the country, sponsored by Sen. Barnabas Gemade (Benue North) and Stella Oduah (Anambra North).

According to Sen. Gemade, the level of drilling of boreholes for ground water has increased tremendously in the last 10 years especially since the introduction of constituency intervention projects and the advent of United Nations programmes of MDGs now SDGs. He observed that the phenomenon of building Captive Dams has been extensively used in other countries to recharge aquifer and to maintain good level of ground water table even where extensive irrigation from borehole is adapted. The Motion scaled through with four resolutions below:

i) Encourage the Federal Ministry of Power, Works and Housing to construct small Captive Dams in all communities and locations where there are about 4000 small dams per year.

ii) Urge the Federal Ministry of Power, Works and Housing to work on all rivers crossing the highways with capacity to capture some water without jeopardizing the road structure itself since this will allow the money spent to serve dual purposes.

iii) Urge the Federal Ministry of Water Resources to carry out investigation of ground water situation in all River Basins to monitor its deployment.

iv) Direct the Committee on Water Resources, Works, Agriculture and Environment to develop implementable guidelines for Captive Dams construction programme.

2) Urgent need to control the indiscriminate erection of Speed Bumps on Federal Roads nationwide, sponsored by Sen. Barnabas Gemade (Benue North) and Sen. Stella Oduah (Anambra North). 

Sen. Gemade noted with dismay the thousands of Speed Bumps recently erected on almost all Federal high ways nationwide ostensibly to control speed of motor vehicles plying the roads. The Motion sailed through with four prayers below:

i) Direct the Federal Ministry of Power, Works and Housing to remove all speed bumps indiscriminately erected off the Federal Highways nationwide.

ii) Urge the Federal Ministry of Power, Works and Housing to cause owners of Petrol Filling Stations to build a service lane of not less than 50m on both sides of the stations to avoid customers turning directly to and from the highways.

iii) Urge the Ministry of Power, Works and Housing to enforce the setback regulations of fixed structure along highways.

iv) Enforce Planning Authority regulations for motor-parks, markets & places of worship.

3) Boundary Crisis arising from non-delineation of Nigerian internal Boundaries, sponsored Sen. Gershom H. Bassey (Cross River South). 

The Senate noted that the Nigerians borders are afflicted by multitude of boundary crisis that straddle villages and causes of loss of lives and properties. Sen. Bassey noted that farmlands and the use of land mass as means of revenue allocation in Nigeria is a major factor contributing to boundary disputes. The Motion was passed with a single resolution below:

i) Urge the Senate Committee on State and Local Government to invite the National Boundary Commission (NBC) to investigate the reasons why there is still lingering boundary crisis in the country.

4) The need to Review the Privatization of Public Enterprises in Nigeria, sponsored by Sen. Umaru I. Kurfi (Katsina Central).

Accordingly, the Senate noted that the privatization of Public Enterprises is a by-product of global economic recession in the 1980s where Nigeria and other African countries were advised by the Bretton Wood Institution (International Monetary Fund IMF) and the World Bank (WB) to divest from their public enterprises as one of the conditions for economic assistance.

Sen. Kurfi was further disturbed that the objectives of the privatization have not been realized to stimulate economic growth or welfare of the people, the exercise seem to make the poor poorer by increasing unemployment and reducing access of the poor to basic goods and services through increase in prices in addition to the fact that most of the privatized firms went comatose after the privatization. The Motion scaled through with three prayers below:

i) Direct the Senate Committee on Privatization to have an interface with National Council on Privatization and Bureau of Public Enterprises to receive and examine a comprehensive report of current privatization status of Nigerian Public Enterprises.

ii) Direct the Committee to conduct Public Hearing to determine the Public Enterprises privatized/commercialized, current status of privatized enterprises, extent of due process in the conduct of the exercise, enterprises whose privatization were reversed by the Federal Government, extent of compliance with post privatization conditions by core investors and the impact of the privatization of public enterprises on the Nigerian economy.

iii) Make appropriate recommendations that will ensure functionality of the privatized enterprises to realize the objectives of the exercise which will among other things reduce the impact of current economic challenge.

5) The urgent need for the Federal Government to fund our Foreign Missions, sponsored by Sen. Tijani Yahaya Kaura (Zamfara North). The Motion sailed with a single prayer below:

i) Urge the Committee on TETFUND to organize a stakeholders meeting to come up with a report in four weeks that will be considered by the Senate.