{"id":734,"date":"2024-09-13T07:56:23","date_gmt":"2024-09-13T07:56:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/?p=734"},"modified":"2024-09-13T07:56:38","modified_gmt":"2024-09-13T07:56:38","slug":"sedc-bill-clpac-affirms-stella-oduah-as-pioneer-sponsor-faults-ben-kalus-narrative","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/2024\/09\/13\/sedc-bill-clpac-affirms-stella-oduah-as-pioneer-sponsor-faults-ben-kalus-narrative\/","title":{"rendered":"SEDC Bill: CLPAC affirms Stella Oduah as Pioneer Sponsor,\u00a0 …. faults Ben Kalu’s narrative"},"content":{"rendered":"
SEDC Bill: CLPAC affirms Stella Oduah as Pioneer Sponsor,<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
…. faults Ben Kalu’s narrative<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
Ignatius Okorocha Abuja<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
Civil Liberties Parliamentary Advocacy Centre (CLPAC) a non-governmental legislative and civil society advocacy organisation has stated that it is erroneous to ascribe the recently signed South East Development Commission (SEDC) Bill to the Deputy Speaker of the House of Representatives, Hon. Benjamin Kalu.<\/div>\n
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Giving a historical genesis of the SEDC ,\u00a0 the organisation through a press statement issued on Thursday by its publicity secretary Arc. Vincent Udemba in Abuja, noted\u00a0 that\u00a0 SEDC contrary to the propagated narrative that the Bill was conceived in the 8th Senate by Senator Stella Oduah ( Anambra North ) and merged with a similar Bill sponsored by Senator Samuel Anyanwu (Imo East ), when it was introduced to the floor of the Red Chambers on June 22 2016.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
He clarified that as at 2016 of the 8th Assembly when the Bill was initiated, Hon Benjamin Kalu was not holding any political office not until June 2019 when he resumed as an elected member of the House of Representatives.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
Making references to the archives of Order paper Nigeria, the Senate’s Order Paper 2016 (SB. 303) and Newspapers publications of June 17, 2017 Vincent pointed out that the Bill was first read on the floor of the 8th Senate led by former Senate President Bukola Saraki on Wednesday, 22nd June 2016 and scaled the second reading on the 7th June 2017.<\/div>\n
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It read; “On December 12, 2018 the Senate passed the Bill and one week to the expiration of the 8th Assembly the House of Representatives on 28th May 2019, passed the Bill.<\/div>\n
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“At the level of the 8th House of Representatives the same bill was sponsored by former Deputy Minority Leader Hon.Chukwuma Onyema (Anambra,Ogbaru).<\/div>\n
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The statement noted that after much debate by members, the Deputy Speaker, Yussuff Lassun (APC-Osun) who presided over the day’s plenary, put the matter to vote and the majority voted in favour of the bill.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
Urging the General Public,\u00a0 10th National Assembly and the Media not to distort history, the organisation noted that it is pertinent to set the records straight by giving credit to Stella Oduah who conceived the Bill in the and solely reintroduced , championed its passage in the 9th Assembly with the support of other Senators but was not assented into law by former President Mohammadu Buhari.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
Vincent emphasised that the input of the Deputy Speaker was as a result his status being Most ranked Reps Member from the Southeast and was thus named as the Bill’s sponsor when it was reintroduced in the 10th Assembly as a matter of privilege and respect.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
He noted that though CLPAC acknowledges Hon Benjamin Kalu’s contributions it will however be a grave error to solely abrogate the Bill’s establishment to the Deputy Speaker.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
He urged Deputy Speaker’s loyalists not to thwart the course of history but give respective accolades not only to Ben Kalu but to President Tinubu, its Pioneer Stella Oduah, Samuel Anyanwu and other Lawmakers who played significant roles.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
According to Vincent it is a common practice for Lawmakers to reintroduce Bills which were passed by previous Assemblies but failed to receive presidential assent.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
He explained further; “It would be wrong to give entire credit to a Lawmaker who reintroduced a bill rather than the original sponsor, an example is the already passed Nigerian Peace Corps Bill pending before the President”.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
“The creation of the SEDC was a promise made by President Tinubu during his Presidential campaign in 2023 , when he paid a courtesy visit to the then Enugu state governor, Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi and a brief meeting was held at the government house”.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
“The Governor raised the issue of marginalization of the Southeast and President Tinubu pledged to set up a Development Commission if he is eventually elected into office”.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
“It appears as if Hon Benjamin Kalu is in contest with taking the Glory of President Tinubu\u2019s achievements whose administration have realised the establishment of SEDC\u00a0 and similar commissions such as the North West Development Commission (NWDC)”.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
He maintained that the success of the bill is Fulfillment of President Tinubu\u2019s campaign Promise to establish a commission to develop the South-East as well as the collective efforts of not only Lawmakers from the Southeast but other Parliamentarians from other Geo Political zones starting from the 8th, 9th and 10th Assemblies.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
Vincent added that they now signed SEDC Bill Vincent had already received all necessary legislative inputs by the members of upper and lower chambers of the 9th Assembly and was assiduously passed by the Senate presided by the then Senate President Ahmad Lawan.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
The statement read partly; “It is imperative to orient Nigerians that this was not the Brainchild of Benjamin Kalu contrary to what he has been telling South easterners and Nigerians at large.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
“It was not just Lawmakers of the South East caucus but other Lawmakers and the most Credit should be given to President Tinubu and of course Senator Stella Oduah for initiating the Bill as well as Senator Samuel Anyanwu for championing it’s course”.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
Recall that the bill, was is co-sponsored by the then Chairman, Senate Committee Cooperation and Integration, Stella Oduah (PDP, Anambra North) and her counterpart in Ethics, Privileges and Public Petitions Committee, Samuel Anyanwu (PDP, Imo East), it passed through First Reading in June 2017 and scaled through Second Reading the following month.<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

SEDC Bill: CLPAC affirms Stella Oduah as Pioneer Sponsor, …. faults Ben Kalu’s narrative Ignatius Okorocha Abuja Civil Liberties Parliamentary Advocacy Centre (CLPAC) a non-governmental legislative and civil society advocacy organisation has stated that it is erroneous to ascribe the recently signed South East Development Commission (SEDC) Bill to the Deputy Speaker of the House […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":43,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,4],"tags":[419,418,420,422,421],"class_list":["post-734","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general-news","category-politics","tag-bill-on-sedc","tag-controversy","tag-cso","tag-deputy-speaker-kalu","tag-stella-oduah"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/734","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=734"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/734\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":735,"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/734\/revisions\/735"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/43"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=734"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=734"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=734"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}