Bill to break Oyo State scales second reading in House of Reps

House seeks national honours for Deputy Senate President, Deputy Speaker
In an unprecedented move, a bill to amend the 1999 Constitution to create new Oyo and Ibadan States has scaled second reading in the House of Representatives.

The bill, sponsored by Akeem Adeyemi, the son of the late Alaafin of Oyo, and six others, seeks to create Oyo State with Oyo town as the capital, while the remaining part should form Ibadan State with Ibadan city as the capital.

The constitution alteration bill, which passed for a second reading, yesterday, during the plenary, proposes the division of the existing 33 local councils that would be shared among the two states.

The bill was subsequently referred to the Constitutional Review Committee for further legislative action.

HOWEVER, the House has called on President Bola Tinubu to extend the conferment of national honours to the Deputy Speaker, Benjamin Kalu and the Deputy Senate President, Barau Jibrin.

The House, while adopting the report of the Prof. Julius Ihonvbere-led Adhoc Committee on Discrimination Against the House of Representatives at the plenary presided by the Speaker, Tajudeen Abass, called on the President to extend the gesture to all other leaders of both chambers of the National Assembly to reflect their equal status.

The lawmakers insisted that the procedure for joint sittings of the National Assembly should be structured in such a way as to alternate the roles of the presiding officers of each chamber of the National Assembly such as the Speaker giving the opening remarks and the Senate President taking the closing remarks and vice versa to gradually correct the erroneous impression of one chamber being superior to the other.

They also called for the establishment of a National Assembly Service Award through the instrumentality of a bill where excellence, service and dedication would be rewarded as is the case with the Congressional Gold Award of the United States (U.S.).

The House, which further called for the review of the National Honours Act, Cap.N43, Laws of the Federation of Nigeria, 2004 in conformity with the current realities of the nation’s political existence and transformation as the law is a 1964 Act, commended the President for using his discretion judiciously to award the GCON to the Speaker, Abbas Tajudeen.