The House of Representatives retracted a bill on Wednesday that sought to create the National Assembly Service Pension Board.
With the passage of the bill, the national assembly service would have been automatically disregarded for contributing pension purposes.
Before some committee members objected, the bill was set for a third reading on the Order Paper.
The bill was opposed by Rep. Bamidele Salam, the deputy chairman of the House Committee on Pensions because it did not go through a public hearing.
According to Bamidele and other committee members, it was against House regulations that there was no public hearing on the bill.
Rep. Cook Olododo (SDP-Kwara), who participated, noted that members of the committee were absent from the plenary to protest the house’s decision to send the bill to the committee of the Whole.
Some of the politicians, he claimed, had attended the state-level primaries for their respective parties.
Deputy Speaker Idris Wase criticized the members for not abiding by the 60-day norm while presiding over plenary when the bill was referred to the committee of the whole.
He claims that the committee was released from holding public hearings after failing to submit its report on the creation of the National Assembly service pension board after 60 days.
However, the Speaker, Femi Gbajabiamila, urged the members to proceed cautiously when passing such a law without the necessary input from stakeholders.
Gbajabiamila claimed that the committee had written to him requesting money to hold public hearings, but he noted that at the time, there was no money available to do so. The Speaker withdrew the bill while requesting additional consultation.
