By JOHNBOSCO AGBAKWURU

ABUJA — AS the Senate re-sumes today after the Easter, the leadership has assured of passage of critical pending bills, especially the Petroleum Industry Bill, PIB.

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Others include the Constitution Amendment Bill, and the Electoral Act Amendment Bill.

Senate Committee Chairman on Rules and Business, Senator Ita Enang, who spoke on the expectations of the public from the Senate, assured Nigerians that critical bills pending would be given urgent consideration.

The urgent considerations of pending bills for passage were in view of the limited time it had for the end of the legislative session.

Investigations revealed that majority of Nigerians are not happy over the snail speed in passing bills in the Senate and also the feared that the international oil communities had been making efforts to ensure that some of the pending bills were passed, particularly the PIB.

Some Nigerians had argued that the passage of the PIB would revolutionise the oil and gas sector.

It was observed that the Senators would embark on a two week recess in June to end the current legislative year and upon their return, go for their annual eight-week summer recess which will end in September.

Consequently, going by the time table released by the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, the process of electioneering for the 2015 polls would have commenced in earnest, with senators returning to their constituencies for serious politicking.

But Enang explained that the leadership of the Senate had concluded arrangements to prioritise the pending critical bills before it, and was aware that the remaining time available for its legislative activities, in the face of termination of its annual recess in September when political parties would be expected to start their primaries.

ers of INEC on nomination and the nominations are expected this year and so,reasonably  it is expected that we should be able to pass ammendment so the act so that INEC may know which of their submissions that we had accepted and those that had be rejected and those which had become law which they had to abide by.”

Enang said there were also several issues which were related to the Act in the 1999 amended constitution.

”We have to look at whether it is reasonable to amend those provisions to untie the hands of the court so that in the course of INEC and Nigerians preparing for the election, the contestants will know for certain, the state of the laws under which they are contesting and contending the elections.

”The lawmaker also explained that the senators would give priority to the PIB which had undergone some processes and needed to be concluded urgently “so that we can start its implementation before the heat of the preparations for the election comes.

”This year, we will be very serious and timeous about the Appropriation and other sensitive bills already listed knowing that in the course of the year, there will be too much politicking and the political parties and the legislators may be a lot engaged in it.

”Since we are all products of political parties, we can allow legislators to share their time between legislation and  the affairs of their political parties. It is a peculiar year and we are going to treat it peculiarly,” he said.

It was gathered that apart from the critical bills yet to be fully considered, the Senate is expected to also receive and consider reports on the alleged missing $20bn oil fund, the Immigration recruitment tragedy, and probe of the aviation sector.