Against all odds, the House of Representatives on Tuesday, December 21, 2021 at its closing plenary day in the year, exceeded into the law the controversial infectious illnesses bill.
It will be recalled that at the top of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic in 2020, the House acquired right here up with the invoice to manage infectious ailments in Nigeria.
Sponsored with the aid of the Speaker of the House, Femi Gbajabiamila and two extraordinary lawmakers, the bill was once once titled “Bill for an Act to Repeal the Quarantine Act and Enact the Control of Infectious Diseases Bill, make Provisions Relating to Quarantine and make Regulations for Preventing the Introduction into and Spread in Nigeria of Dangerous
Infectious Diseases; and for Related Matters”.
It scaled via first and 2d readings on April 28, 2020.
The public hearing on the consignment used to be held on June 12, 2020.
However, the invoice stirred up controversies with the Nigeria Governors Forum, NGF through Governor Aminu Tambuwal of Sokoto State asking the House to step it down.
Also at its public hearing, many stakeholders hooked up opposition to some provisions of the bill, arguing that it accorded significant powers to the President and Director General of Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) amongst special issues.
In his remarks to mark the remaining plenary of the year, the Speaker, Femi Gbajabiamila recalled the efforts of the House to conflict COVID-19 pandemic.
He said: “Last year, like the relaxation of the world, Nigeria was once immersed in the global response to the Covid-19 pandemic. This year, the pandemic however persists, evolving in methods that portend danger for our people right here at home and all over the world. Two areas of particular situation are the trouble of vaccine hesitancy and the international response to rising variants in techniques that appear to goal the African continent. We have regarded via years of scientific evidence that vaccines work. They have labored to fight yellow fever and measles and to cease polio. At the top of the pandemic, we prayed for deliverance from the entice of this lethal disease. Vaccines are the reply to that prayer, and as leaders in our communities, we should inspire humans to take gain of the protection provided by way of science to forestall sickness and death.
“Just as importantly, it is evident that the capability to cross boundaries and participate in world alternate in the coming months will rely on proof of vaccination. We can not come up with the cash for to isolate ourselves or permit others to decrease us off from world civilisation at a time when our u . s . broad financial indices continue to be minimize than they ought to as a direct end end result of the contraction in global trade due to the persevering with pandemic. The troubling reality of monetary problem for many Nigerians requires that authorities continues to make investments in infrastructure and education and diversify our economic system from a unsafe overreliance on fossil fuels. This is the solely actual long-term alternative for addressing the troubles of unemployment and monetary disenfranchisement in our country. Our capacity to do these matters will be rather decreased if we can't take phase absolutely in the international order.
“Last year, the House of Representatives initiated a lengthy past due effort to reform the statutory framework for public fitness emergency response in our country. At that time, our appropriate belief efforts were willfully mischaracterised through way of men and women who noticed the second as an chance to rating cheap political elements and earn the passing accolades of the ignorant and misinformed. Today, the complete world is grappling with the problems we sought to become aware of and tackle then. There are many instructions to be realized from that experience. Most paramount of them all, is that public insurance is serious enterprise and the welfare of the Nigerian human beings must in no way be surrendered on the altar of less expensive populism or the pursuit of rapid time period political advantage.
At the plenary, yesterday, the Chairman of the House Committee on Healthcare Services, Hon. Tanko Sununu moved a motion for the consideration of the document on the bill.
“That the House do replicate onconsideration on the Report of the Committee on Healthcare Services on a Bill for an Act to
Repeal the Quarantine Act and Enact the Control of Infectious Diseases Bill, make Provisions Relating to
Quarantine and make Regulations for Preventing the Introduction into and Spread in Nigeria of Dangerous
Infectious Diseases; and for Related Matters; (HB. 836) and approve the recommendations therein”, he said.
With the motion, the House then viewed the clauses in the invoice and adopted them.
The bill used to be later find out about for the 1/3 time and surpassed into law.
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