BY INALEGWU SHAIBU

ABUJA — THE Senate has admitted its failure to pass the Petroleum Industry Bill, PIB, despite repeated assurances to Nigerians that the bill will be passed before the end of life of the sixth Senate.

Chairman, Senate Committee on Information and Media, Senator Ayogu Eze, admitting the failure yesterday at a news conference, however, assured Nigerians that the bill would be passed in the incoming Senate.

He noted that the bill could not be passed in the sixth Senate, which will wind up tomorrow due to tight schedules, adding that the bill would not die with the sixth Senate.

He said: “We made promises, but you know that man proposes, God disposes, if we make promises and it is our schedule of our activities and genuinely because we made promises about FOI Bill, we made promises about other activities too, these activities fall behind one another and we take them in the order.

“If we are not able to get to PIB in the 6th Senate that does not mean that the Senate has failed in its promise, because we have the 7th Senate starting next week, is not starting next year, it’s just a gap of few days, so the PIB will come on board, but I assure you, as I did before, we will pass the PIB, we will pass it.”

He pleaded with Nigerians to bear with the National Assembly for failing to pass the bill in the life of the sixth Senate, saying the achievement of amending the 1999 Constitution was a good reason for the people to put their trust in the Senate.

Senator Eze also assured Nigerians that new states would be created by the incoming Senate.

“We have proved that it is possible within a civilian dispensation to amend the Constitution. This was unthinkable in the past.
“Now we need to prove that through negotiations in civilian dispensation that we can create states.

“We can balance the structure for the country, we can do things that will correct the imbalances in the system. I think that is one assignment that I think is in progress,” he said.