Senate in session

Controversial Service Extension Bill introduced in the National Assembly through the House of Representatives has failed to receive the endorsement of senators as it was stepped down at plenary, yesterday.

It was another rowdy session in the Senate when the Senate leader, Opeyemi Bamidele, introduced the bill.

Members rejected the bill, insisting that it was not healthy for the civil service.

Ruling on the matter, Senate President, Godswill Akpabio, said they were stepping down the bill because of the controversy it had generated.

The plan to extend the tenure of the current Clerk to the National Assembly, Sani Tambawal Magaji, and over 200 staff, generated the uproar.

If the bill passed, over 200 staff due for retirement in November this year may likely get a five-year service extension.

But the Senate refused concurrence to the controversial bill on the extension of retirement age for civil servants in the legislative arms and across the 36 State Houses of Assembly.

The staff of the National Assembly, who were apprehensive, said efforts by the Senate to pass a bill for an act to extend the retirement age of the staff of the National Assembly Service from 60 to 65 years of age and from 35 to 40 years of service was counterproductive.

Successive managements of the National Assembly bureaucracy  since 2017, it was alleged, had made frantic effort to buy over the leadership and members of the Senate and the House of Representatives to make a law extending the tenure of service as against the condition prescribed by the Public Service Rules, which provides for retirement age of persons in the public service of the Federation at the attainment of 60 years of age or 35 years of service whichever comes first.