Senate passes Nigerian Peace Corps Bill

The Senate on has passed the Nigerian Peace Corps (Establishment) Bill, 2022.

The passage of the Bill followed the consideration of the report of the Senate Committee Interior chaired by Senator Kashim Shettima.

The bill, sponsored by Senator Ali Ndume, seeks to give legal backing to the establishment of the Peace Corps as a government parastatal and allow its present officials to be absolved into the proposed organisation at commencement.

The bill was passed by the 8th Senate in late 2017 but President Muhammadu Buhari declined assent to the legislation in February 2018, citing security concerns as one of the reasons for his decision.

He had also cited paucity of funds and duplication of duties of existing security agencies by the proposed corps as his main reasons.

Ndume reintroduced the bill to the 9th Senate on December 17, 2019 and noted that core mandate of the corps is to develop, empower, and provide gainful employment for the youth to facilitate peace, volunteerism, community services, neighbourhood watch and nation-building.

The legislation, if passed, according to him, would give statutory backing to the existing Peace Corps of Nigeria, which currently has over 187,000 members, comprising regular staff and volunteers.

The Borno South Senator also said all the issues raised by President Buhari for withholding assent to the bill in the eighth Senate had been addressed in the new bill.

In his reaction, the National Commandant of the Peace Corps of Nigeria, Dickson Akoh, lauded the development.

He insisted that national security requires all hands on deck to be achieved.

He said the Corps will continue its advocacy to ensure that the Bill receive the concurrence of the House of Representatives and eventually assented to when transmitted to the President by the National Assembly.