By Henry Umoru

ABUJA—Following what appears to be a row over bills from the House of Representatives denied concurrence by the Senate, the red chamber put up a defence yesterday, dismissing claims it routinely failed to consider bills passed by the lower house.

The Senate further affirmed never to joke with any legislative initiative or request from the House of Representatives, revealing that it considered at least six of such concurrence bills just last week.

President of the Senate, Godswill Akpabio, and Leader of the Senate, Senator Opeyemi Bamidele (APC, Ekiti Central), gave these clarifications, yesterday.

Both Akpabio and Bamidele rejected the claims of the House of Representatives, revealing that the Senate considered at least six concurrence bills that emanated from the green chamber in the immediate past week.

Akpabio, specifically, said the upper chamber “cannot joke with concurrence bills from the House of Representatives,” saying the Senate would continue to work, as effectively as possible with lawmakers in the green chamber.

The House of Representatives had resolved to suspend further consideration of bills originating from the Senate, citing persistent delays in the red chamber’s concurrence to legislation passed by the House.

The lower chamber had further accused the Senate of deliberately stalling the legislative process, citing its failure to act on over 140 bills passed by the House of Representatives, many of which were sponsored by the speaker, Abbas Tajudeen.

Trouble started as the House of Representatives resolved to reject a bill seeking to establish the Federal Orthopaedic Hospital in Obokun, Osun State.

The bill, which was transmitted from the Senate, was listed on the order paper for second reading but was stepped down after several lawmakers raised concerns about what they described as the Senate’s poor attitude towards bills originating from the House.

Julius Ihonvbere, Majority Leader of the House, had moved a motion for second reading of the bill after it was called up by Tajudeen Abbas, the speaker.

Kingsley Chinda, Minority Leader, reluctantly seconded the motion but noted with dismay that several House bills had remained unattended in the Senate.

“I will reluctantly second the motion for the second reading of this bill,” he said.

Responding to the development, Akpabio said: “It takes two hands to clap. We have been attending to bills from the House of Representatives. We are still going to attend to them. And we will continue to work together in the interest of Nigeria and Nigerians.”

While presenting one of the bills from the House of Representatives yesterday, Bamidele said the first two businesses of the day were concurrence bills from the House of Representatives.

Bamidele said: “I just want to put it on record that without attempting to respond to what was published in some newspapers about the Senate not working on concurrence bills from the House of Representatives. For the record, we have been doing what we are supposed to do. Only last week, the Senate concurred to six bills from the House of Representatives.”

We know we have the principle of reciprocity that governs our operations. But this does not necessarily mean garbage in, garbage out.

“We have the duty as the foremost democratic institution in the country to exercise due diligence on the bills. We will continue to consider concurrence bills from the House of Representatives the same way they considered our own bills.

‘’We will ensure that it is given attention in overriding public interest. I   just want to say this for the record.

“We have been attending to these concurrence bills from the House of Representatives. We will continue to do what we are supposed to do, consistent with our mandates under the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, 1999 (as amended.”

Speaking further, Akpabio, who corroborated Bamidele’s position, said:  “Last week, we attended to about six of those bills, and this week, I don’t know how many. But at least, I know we are going to do two today (yesterday).

“So please, let our brothers in the House of Representatives know that we cannot joke with anything that comes from there.  It takes two hands to clap, and we will continue to work together.”