The Nation Newspaper

Tag: NASS

  • NASS to receive Food Hygiene bill

    A bill on the Food Hygiene Initiative of Nigeria (FHIN) will be presented to the National Assembly next week, National President of FHIN Mr. Nicolas Karimu has said.

    Karimu said there will be a meeting with the lawmaker on the bill before the official presentation.

    He spoke in Abuja at the passing out parade ceremony of 500 officers in Abuja.

    They were trained by the Nigeria Security and Civil Defense Corps (NSCDC), at their academy.

    Karimu said they have been working with the Federal Ministry of Health and currently in 21 states.

    He said, “It is about seven months we have been working on the bill. Our lawyers are through with the bill and in the next two week it will be presented to the National Assembly. We have put together a very good bill that would assist the country fight against food and water diseases. The bill is called Food Hygiene Initiative of Nigeria, (FHIN) Act 2016. By next week we will have meeting with the lawmakers At the National Assembly before the presentation of the bill.

    “We are in about 21 states, we are creating awareness, organizing workshops, training food vendors, inspecting their activities on daily basis and reporting back to the Federal Ministry of Health. We have saved a lot of lives.

    “This organisation was established in November 2014. We have up to 1000 staff across the country. We are hoping to train more because our target is to get up to 7,000 staff that will cover the entire country. My message to the graduating people is that they should come and apply and stop saying that there is no job when there is job. Like now what we are going our staff is allowance and we do have our source of income.

    “After training those food vendors we issue them certificate of training. With that certificate we generate little revenue that comes into the purse of the organization.”

    He disclosed that all the security agencies except the military are aware of FHIN activities with strong collaborations for effective delivery.

    The Provost of Civil Defense Academy, Commandant Waheed Popoola expressed optimism that FHIN would be diligent at discharging its duties.

  • Buhari seeks NASS approval for NNPC, CBN, others’ budget

    Buhari seeks NASS approval for NNPC, CBN, others’ budget

    President Muhammadu Buhari on Tuesday forwarded the 2016 budget proposal of 38 Federal Government agencies to the National Assembly for consideration and passage into law.

    The President said the action was informed by the provisions of the Fiscal Responsibility Act, 2007, which provides that the budgets of the agencies should be collated and forwarded to the National Assembly for consideration and approval.

    Senate President, Bukola Saraki, read the presidential letter forwarding the agencies’ budget proposal to senators on Tuesday.

    Most of the listed agencies had been flouting the provisions of the Fiscal Responsibility Act in the yearly operations.

    The list contained mostly revenue generating agencies including the Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Nigeria Customs Service and Nigeria Port Authority (NPA).

    Others were – Bureau of Public Enterprises (BPE), National Agencies for Science and Engineering Infrastructure (NASEI), Nigerian Airspace Management Agency (NAMA), Nigerian Shippers’ Council (NSC), National Maritime Authority (NMA), Raw Materials Research and Development Council ( RMRDC), National Sugar Development Council (NSDC), Nigerian Postal Service (NPS), Federal Airport Authority of Nigeria (FAAN), Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Nigerian Tourism Development Corporation (NTDC), Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), National Agency for Food and Drugs Administration and Control (NAFDAC), Nigerian Customs Service (NCS), National Broadcasting Commission (NBC),National Insurance Commission (NAICOM)  and News Agency of Nigeria (NAN).

    Also listed were – Nigerian Copyright Commission (NCC), Nigerian Deposit Insurance Corporation (NDIC), Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA), Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS), Nigerian Immigration Service (NIS), Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC), Federal Radio Corporation of Nigeria (FRCN), Federal Housing Authority (FHA), Nigerian Television Authority (NTA), National Automotive Design and Development Council (NADDC), Nigerian Nuclear Regulatory Authority (NNRA), National Business and Technical Examination Board (NABTEB), Federal Mortgage Board (FMB), National Environmental Standards and Regulations Enforcement Agency (NESREA), Industrial Training Fund (ITF), Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC), Standards Organisation of Nigeria (SON) and Oil and Gas Free Zone Authority.

    President Buhari asked the lawmakers to note that in line with the provisions of the Act, budget of the agencies and corporations which have been privatised or otherwise seized to exist were not included in the list.

     

  • Buhari sends budgets of CBN, NNPC, others to NASS

    Buhari sends budgets of CBN, NNPC, others to NASS

    President Muhammadu Buhari on Tuesday sent the budgets of agencies and corporations under the Fiscal Responsibility Act 2007 to the National Assembly.

    In a letter dated June 30, 2016 and addressed to the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Hon. Yakubu Dogara, the President said he was submitting the budget of 38 agencies and corporations in line with extant laws.

    Buhari said: “Further to the provisions of the Fiscal Responsibility Act, 2007 which provides that the budgets of the agencies listed in the Act be collated and forwarded to the National Assembly for consideration, I forward herewith the 2016 budget proposals of the underlisted agencies for your consideration and passage.”

    The President while praying for an expeditious approval of the budgets of the agencies and corporations said that in line with the provisions of the Act, “budget of the agencies and corporations which have been privatized or otherwise ceased to exist are not included herein.”

    The submitted budgets include that of Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS), Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA), Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC).

    Others are – Bureau of Public Enterprises (BPE), National Maritime Authority (NMA), Federal Airport Authority of Nigeria (FAAN), Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), Nigerians Deposit Insurance Corporation (NDIC), Nigerians Immigration Service (NIS), Federal Housing Authority (FHA), Federal Mortgage Bank (FMB) and Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC), amongst others.

  • Dangers of Executive takeover of NASS

    It has become necessary for all lovers of democracy and haters of autocracy to beam their searchlight on the unfolding events at the National Assembly, particularly the Senate.

    Even before the inauguration of the Eight Senate, controversy had been thick in the air and there was plenty of jockeying for power, supremacy, and control of the leadership of the Senate. It is not a secret that the powers-that-be prepared particular candidates to emerge as leaders of the Senate and the House of Representatives, but failed woefully in their unholy and clandestine bid to pocket the legislature. And there has been no respite for the senate and its leadership ever since, as it has been one allegation of criminal offence or the other and dragging about of Senate leadership from one court to the other.

    As a democratic State, implicit in the existence of the three arms of Government is the doctrine of separation of powers and the principle of checks and balances, which are particularly key in a presidential system of government. The idea of separation of powers is aimed essentially at guarding against absolute power that comes with the fusion of the enormous powers of state in a few hands. Fashioned out by great thinkers and activists of the 18th and 19th centuries, particularly Jean Montesquieu and A.V. Dicey, the principal aim of the concept of separation of powers is to ensure the smooth sail of democracy and to scuttle impunity by those in government. By this principle, each branch of Government is independent of the other, though they cooperate.

    Allied to this concept, is the principle of checks and balances, whereby each organ of government acts as a check on the other without interfering with its internal affairs. That way, dictatorship is kept at bay.

    I have taken the pain to elucidate on these principles to show the complete threat to democracy and the gradual descent to the cesspit of anarchy, which the ceaseless interference of the executive in the affairs of the Senate portends.

    Despite the laborious efforts by the executive to deny the incessant efforts to pass off the presiding officers of the Senate as common felons, it should be clear to them by now that they can no longer take Nigerians for fools.

    The harassment, intimidation, and campaign of calumny, steadily waged against some principal officers of the Senate since their emergence to the outrage of the powers-that-be can no longer be hidden.

    If some patriotic Nigerians gave the ruling civilian junta some benefit of doubt when it arraigned the Senate President to be tried by a clearly partisan Chairman of the Code of Conduct Tribunal, who himself was facing corruption allegation before the EFCC, those doubts have since evaporated following the arraignment of the presiding officers of the Senate alongside one retired, and a serving, bureaucrat on trumped-up forgery charges at the High Court of the Federal Capital Territory.

    Indeed, this desperation to flush out Senates presiding officers by hook or crook was made clearer to doubting Thomases by the recent ruling of Justice Gabriel Kolawole of the Federal High Court, Abuja, who described the criminal charges as a gross abuse of legal process.

    Instead of preventing the abuse that arose in filing criminal charges despite a pending suit challenging the police report, which the criminal charges rest upon, Justice Kolawole rightly pointed out that: The converse situation, which the drafters of the Constitution, perhaps never envisaged, appears to have occurred in this case as the 2nd defendant (Attorney-General) who is required, by section 174(3) of the constitution, to discontinue at any stage before judgment is delivered, any such criminal proceedings instituted or undertaken by him or any other authority or person where such proceedings constitute abuse of legal process, is in fact the very person who initiated a criminal proceedings in a matter in which he had, as a private legal practitioner, acted for one of the interested Senators who had petitioned the 1st defendant (Police) on 30/6/15″. He also averred that the desperation to arraign the men does not portray the AGF as acting in public interest.

    Lovers of democracy should, therefore, be worried that the arm of government (legislature), whose existence symbolises the existence of democracy, and which our constitution has vested with critical responsibilities is in grave danger. Even if we do not like the face of some people that populate the National Assembly, we cannot afford to be so blindfolded to its constitutional role as a check against absolute power, which corrupts absolutely.

    The NASS is the only institution where the President comes to bow at least once in a year. The 1999 Constitution confers on NASS the powers to make laws for the good governance of Nigeria; powers to oversight the other arms of government and their agencies; powers to approve certain appointments (eg. Ministers, Ambassadors, Heads and Members of statutory commissions, and certain judicial appointments like Supreme Court and Chief Justice of Nigeria, etc); and above all the powers to approve how the nation’s wealth is spent through the Appropriation Act.

    I must warn loudly and clearly that a legislature in the pocket of the executive, coupled with the prevailing situation where the executive flouts court rulings with impunity, is an open invitation to tyranny and anarchy. It must be resisted by all lawful means.  Those drumming support for this emerging totalitarianism should also remember in mind that hardly has there been anyone who rode on the back of the tiger of dictatorship that did not eventually end up in its tommy. We must join hands to resist this drift to dictatorship before it is too late.

    • Yakubu wrote from Jos

     

  • NASS and constituency projects

    In its editorial of June 26, with the title Unholy Alliance, The Nation castigated the National Assembly over its insistence on the implementation of constituency projects in the 360 Federal Constituencies and 109 Senatorial Districts.

    On June 20, the House of Representatives in conjunction with the National Institute for Legislative Studies (NILS) organised a one-day summit on Political Representation and Constituency Relations and Intervention Services in Abuja.  In the course of proceedings, Vice President Professor Yemi Osinbajo and Minister of Works, Housing and PowerBabatundeFashola delivered speeches expressing their opposition to the inclusion of constituency projects in the federal budget.

    Speaker of the House of Representatives, Rt. Hon. YakubuDogara, in his own speech countered the arguments against constituency projects drawing examples from different jurisdictions similar to Nigeria’s presidential democracy.

    Historically, prior to 1999 and indeed until 2003, the phenomenon of constituency project was alien to Nigeria’s budgeting system. However, with return to democracy in 1999 and the chronic failure of the executive to ensure even distribution of projects across the 36 states, 774 local governments and indeed all the electoral wards and the resultant disquiet from aggrieved Nigerians in the rural areas, lawmakers were left with no option but to begin the agitation for equitable allocation and distribution of federal projects nationwide.

    The Nation’s editorial mischievously tried to connote that the doctrine of separation of power as espoused by Montesquieu was being compromised as a result of legislators’ involvement in the execution of constituency projects. This is far from the truth because members of the National Assembly are neither given money nor awarded contracts to execute any constituency project.

    As Speaker Dogara stated, all that each member or Senator does is to identify the peculiar needs of his/her people, select location and type of the project and strive to ensure that it is implemented. All monies budgeted for constituency projects are domiciled in respective ministries, departments and agencies. It is the executive that award the contracts and execute them in the same manner as all other projects.

    Now, one major reason why lawmakers would always insist on having projects in the budget is that the executive hasn’t come clean on the issue of lopsided allocation of projects. The practice has consistently been that if the minister or permanent secretary or even directors in a given ministry or parastatal is from a particular part of the country, they would normally allocate a substantial percent of the projects or capital votes to their states or geo-political zones while leaving out the rest of the country to grapple with the remaining negligible percentage.

    Year-in-year-out, this has been both the practice and the norm. How do you expect a lawmaker to vote and approve an over 1000 page budget document running into trillions of Naira that has no single project for his constituents? What do you expect such a member or senator to tell their constituents?

    For the benefit of those who are either ignorant or doubtful, the philosophy of constituency projects is well embedded and encapsulated in the 1999 constitution in the federal character principle. More specifically, the constitution in section 14(3) states,  “The composition of the Government of the Federation or any of its agencies and the conduct of its affairs shall be carried out in such manner as to reflect the federal character of Nigeria and the need to promote national unity, and also to command national loyalty thereby ensuring that there shall be no predominance of persons from a few States or from a few ethnic or other sectional groups in that government or in any of its agencies.” This also extends to allocation and implementation of budget and projects which is well covered by the provisions of section 16 (1): “The State shall…harness the resources of the nation and promote national prosperity and an efficient, dynamic and self-reliant economy and control the national economy in such manner as to secure the maximum welfare, freedom and happiness of every citizen on the basis of social justice and equality…..”.

    AsDogara noted, Lagos State stands out as the first state to enact the law legitimising constituency projects just one year into the Fourth Republic in 2000. In fact, other states soon emulated Lagos and to some extent the federal legislature.

    Fashola implemented constituency projects for members of the Lagos State House of Assembly for the eight years he was the governor. The Vice President was Attorney General of Lagos State also and at no point in time did any of them contend that the Lagos law is unconstitutional. As Senior Advocates, why didn’t any of them challenge the Lagos law in court? Are they saying constituency project is only good and constitutional for Lagos State only? What else might have informed their sudden change of perception?

    The capital budget as proposed by Fashola’s ministry was N334.3 billion out of which he allocated N89 billion to his home region while the North-east, the most devastated and neglected region got a paltry N10b. How can anyone justify this and then turn around to oppose a token allocation of say N30 million for rural projects in the federal constituencies including the ones in the geopolitical zone that was allocated N89 billion of the ministry’s capital budget? A minister takes N89b to his region and turns around to attack N100b meant for Constituencies nationwide. Sadly, this is what The Nation sought to defend in its editorial.

    The argument has always been that the job of lawmakers is to make laws and no more, even then it is usually conveniently disregarded, the fact that annual budget or appropriation is one of the most important laws by the legislature.  We should be reminded that making laws is just one function while there are other more critical aspects of the work of MPs. The job of a lawmaker also includes representation which entails protection of the interests of their constituents by ensuring that they get fair treatment from government including a fair share of the national budget.

    But for constituency projects, many rural communities would never have known about the existence of the federal government let alone benefitting from budgets. Thanks to the mechanism of the projects which ensures that every year projects such as solar powered bores, hand pumps, school infrastructure, dispensaries, skills acquisition centres, poverty alleviation, etc are implemented, however poorly the implementation . Infact, it is on record that over the years, the executive deliberately frustrates the implementation of constituency projects to the point that not up to 40 percent has ever been implemented in any given budget year. Already unfortunately, the Secretary to the Government of the Federation Babachir David Lawal, has stated that the government may not be able to implement constituency projects in the 2016 budget. May be he doesn’t know that the Appropriation Act is a law that must be implemented unless of course if it is amended which can only be done if the government fails to meet its revenue targets.

    Needless to say that it is the monumental failure of the executive of successive administrations to implement budgets and ensure national spread of projects through even and equitable allocation of capital votes that compelled lawmakers to insist that a meagre or paltry sum be allocated for projects in constituencies nationwide. It is strange for a top functionary of an APC government to oppose a policy aimed at fairness and transparency such as constituency projects. For the avoidance of doubt, skewed development is corruption and it’s propagation in an APC government will be puzzling paradox.

    The editorial also carefully but deliberately ignored the many examples mentioned by the Speaker as obtainable in other jurisdictions that practice presidential democracy like ours, notably, close home here, Kenya which has even set up a fund called the Constituency Development Fund and so many countries that have followed or are in the process of enacting similar laws.

    The 1999 Constitution is loosely modelled after the American Constitution with the same system of presidential democracy. Their system fully and duly recognises constituency projects which in the USA is called “Pork Barrels”. Congressmen and women always ensure that they get a piece of the pork barrel for their constituencies in every federal budget. The Speaker cited specific examples of pork barrels attracted by some members of congress including but not limited to the ones attracted by Paul Ryan the current speaker of US House of Representatives. If those pork barrels are not unconstitutional in the US, how are they unconstitutional under the Nigerian constitution which is patterned after the US constitution? We are not oblivious of the concept of adaptation but the object of adaptation has never been retrogression.

    .

    • Hon. Namdas is chairman, House of Representatives Committee on Media & Publicity.

  • NASS, Saraki weary the Buhari presidency

    SENATE President Bukola Saraki has since last September been facing prosecution at the Code of Conduct Tribunal for alleged false declaration of asset. The case has witnessed many adjournments, not to talk of deliberate stalling through multiple cases filed in different courts to disqualify the tribunal chairman, Justice Danladi Umar. A few days ago, Senator Saraki again filed a fresh motion to disqualify Justice Umar on the grounds of some of the statements the tribunal chairman made in court. The courts, including this column, presume the senate president innocent, but it is now clear that he is determined to frustrate the case through all sorts of legal sleight of hand. If filing applications in different courts and appellate courts proved unable to frustrate the case as he wishes, his defence counsels would embark on the slowest and most frustrating and provocative cross-examinations. Senator Saraki seems by implication to be saying he does not believe he is innocent of the charges brought against him. And he doesn’t care.

    Now, to pile on the agony, the senate president and his deputy, Ike Ekweremadu of the PDP, will tomorrow be arraigned for allegedly forging Senate Standing Order 2015 in order to facilitate their elections as Senate principal officers. The election of principal officers had since last year become controversial, leading to the discovery of what the police and the Attorney General believe is a forgery. The nation’s chief law officer has finally and rightly given his consent for prosecution to be commenced. In response, an angry Senate has threatened to fight the President Muhammadu Buhari government through every legitimate means, especially by scrupulously conducting oversight functions with dispassion. There would be no more cooperation or cordial relationship with the presidency, they warned. For a long-suffering public subjected to an overreaching executive and underachieving legislature, it is of course good news that both arms of government appear to be determined to give the electorate full value for their votes.

    However, beyond the quarrel, something much more dangerous and fundamental seems amiss. This manifests in different ways. One, it is a tragedy that top national lawmakers appear completely oblivious of the weight of responsibility on their shoulders. Dr Saraki is deliberately and mischievously attempting to manipulate the courts and obstructing justice in his own personal case. Does he not know he is setting a bad example — by the way, just like the executive itself — of treating the justice system with contempt? It is true he is fighting to save his political career and stay out of jail, and he is entitled to achieve these with all the legitimate means at his disposal. But he has embraced extraordinarily bad measures, weakened the rule of law, foolishly blamed his political detractors for his woes as if that mitigates the severity of the charges filed against him, and sent signals to the rest of the country that it is okay to serve the public with lack of character and principles.

    Two, Dr Saraki seems prepared indifferently to bring the whole edifice down simply to save his own skin. He does not care that his insufferable attitude to the case undermines the entire system, brings the National Assembly to disrepute, vitiates the moral force lawmakers should possess, and sets a very appalling example for the youths of the country. He is undoubtedly presumed innocent; but he should allow the courts unfettered opportunity to adjudicate the case instead of entangling the judiciary with his unending rigmarole. There will never be a time when he will not have political detractors. Will he plead persecution every time he holds the short end of the stick, especially as a result of his own malfeasance?

    Three, by threatening not to cooperate with the executive and also harassing the Attorney General because Dr Saraki and a few others are to be arraigned for alleged forgery, the Senate has given indication it is not averse to blackmail. It is unbelievable that the Senate could openly endorse blackmail, as if the august body’s destiny is intertwined with the fates of the accused principal officers.

    What the CCT case has shown, and the forgery case is reiterating, is that too many unprincipled people have been elected into the legislature. Worse, it is also obvious that the lawmakers are led by principal officers with warped understanding of their legislative powers. They have neither demonstrated the character expected of lawmakers nor shown that they possess the kind of vision a great country needs. Indeed, from all indications, neither Dr Saraki nor Senator Ekweremadu, nor yet most national lawmakers feel compelled to change tactics and show a high degree of responsibility. They will fight to the bitter end; they will blackmail the presidency; they will harass the AGF; they will ignore the feelings of the electorate; and they will continue to argue that rather than the merit of the case against them, political detractors are behind their ordeals.

    Every Nigerian must be a great apostle of the rule of law. Therefore, both the presidency and the AGF must be encouraged not succumb to the Senate’s blackmail. Instead, they should help the courts to dispense justice as quickly and efficiently as possible.

  • SEC woos NASS on Master Plan

    SEC woos NASS on Master Plan

    The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has called on the National Assembly  to remove legal impediments hampering the implementation of the capital market master plan.

    Speaking at the stakeholders forum on realising the potentials of the Nigerian economy through proactive capital market legislation co-hosted by the Capital Market Committees of both the Senate and House of Representatives in Abuja, the Director General of the SEC  Munir Gwazo implored the National Assembly to play a critical role in tackling identified legal impediments to master plan.

    He said SEC is taking a proactive step to compile a comprehensive document detailing all of the amendments needed to make the Master Plan implementation a success.

    Gwarzo identified some of the impediments to include Jurisdictional conflict between the Inv estments and Securities  Tribunal and the Federal High Courts Specifically Section 274 of ISA which grants IST EXCLUSIVE jurisdiction over capital market disputes vs Section 251 (1p,q,r) of the 1999 Constitution of Nigeria which gives High Courts jurisdiction over executive or administrative actions of SEC. To address this impediment to the actualization of the master plan, Gwarzo appealed to the National Assembly to  Include  the  IST  under Section 6 (5) of the Constitution and craft “legislation to prescribe the adoption of “Reasonableness test” in conducting judicial review in contrast to the “Correctness Test” as well as make the IST a special Division of the Federal High Court.

  • NASS to support ITF on job creation

    NASS to support ITF on job creation

    • To train 1000 youths from each state

    The Chairman, House Committee on Industry, Hon. Abubakar Moriki has pledged the committee’s readiness to champion and support the Industrial Training Fund’s (ITF) mandate, which is job creation.

    He said the committee will support through the amendment of the ITF Act that is targeted at ensuring the achievement of the Fund’s mandate

    The lawmaker also promised to work with the ITF to resolve the lingering problem of appropriations for the Students Industrial Work Experience Scheme (SIWES), particularly the capital component of the budget of the Scheme, which he lamented, was omitted in the 2016 budget. He said the Committee has advised that it should be included in the capital budget of the Ministry of Industry, Trade and Investment for the year 2017, promising to ensure that it is passed into law.

    He said: “As legislators, we enact laws; we also amend existing laws to ensure that they conform to contemporary realities.

    “As a Committee, we will champion the cause of any enactments or amendments or whatever, which you want the National Assembly to do in order to improve on your mandate as you have appealed to us.”

  • Maikasuwa bows out as NASS clerk

    The controversy trailing the appointment of the Clerk to the National Assembly may have been sorted out as the incumbent Clerk, Dr. Salisu Maikasuwa, has finally bowed out of office.

    Maikasuwa is commencing his terminal leave preparatory to his retirement from service.

    In his place, Alhaji Mohammed Sani-Omolori, will step in as Acting Clerk of the National Assembly.

    In a circular entitled: NASS/CAN/46/Vol.1/97 dated 12th May, 2016, the outgoing clerk said he will proceed on his terminal leave from May 14.

    Maikasuwa added: “During my absence, the Acting Clerk to the National Assembly, Alhaji Mohammed A. Sani-Omolori will perform my duties.”

    Sani-Omolori, the circular said, will be the Acting Clerk of the National Assembly from May 14.

     

  • NASS restates opposition to grazing reserves

    NASS restates opposition to grazing reserves

    The Deputy Senate President, Ike Ekweremadu, says the National Assembly will not support the creation of grazing reserves anywhere in the country.

    Addressing newsmen on Sunday after a meeting of the South East governors and stakeholders in Enugu, Ekweremadu said that there was no bill on the creation of grazing reserves before the National Assembly.

    He, therefore, said that the purported bill for the creation of grazing reserves was a “hoax’’, adding that the press should strive to stop such rumours.

    “There is no such proposal or bill on the creation of grazing reserves either in the Senate or House of Representatives.

    “Nobody is considering it; not even at the executive level. I do not think they are considering it but we will not support it even if it has been considered,” he said.

    Ekweremadu said that the meeting was convened in reaction to the attack on the people of Uzo Uwani by suspected herdsmen.

    He said that the meeting reviewed all that happened since then and thanked all stakeholders who had shown sympathy to victims of the attack.

    On the absence of Imo and Anambra governors, Ekweremadu said: “The South East governors proposed to meet today to review these matters but regrettably, the message did not get to Imo and Anambra governors.

    “So you can see mainly the PDP governors are here. So, they had to review the matter and more importantly, ensure that every governor will be in attendance in the next meeting.

    “The meeting is rescheduled within the week where all the governors are expected to be in attendance,” he said.

    Ekweremadu said that the meeting looked at a more regional approach to curbing the menace of the herdsmen so as to ensure that it did not happen again.

    “We are looking at a concrete and more coordinated approach on how to protect our people from this carnage,” he said.

    Also speaking, Gov. Dave Umahi of Ebonyi said that there was no disunity among governors in the South East zone.

    Umahi said that the governors would take a cursory look at the federal budget, when signed into law, so as to ensure that the zone got what was due to it.

    He said that the governors would ensure the rehabilitation of federal roads in the zone if such arrangements were captured in the budget.

    ““I am sure the Federal Government’s budget is not yet signed. So when it is signed, it will be the duty of all zones to start agitating for attention,” Umahi said.

    The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that Gov. Umahi, Gov Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi of Enugu State and Gov. Okezie Ikpeazu of Abia attended the meeting.