Senate approves June 12 as Democracy Day

The Senate on Thursday concurred with the Public Holiday Act (Amendment) Bill passed by the House of Representatives which approved June 12 as Democracy Day.

This followed the presentation of the conference report by Senate Leader, Sen. Ahmad Lawan at plenary on Thursday.

In his remarks, the President of the Senate, Bukola Saraki put the conference report to a voice vote and it was adopted by the lawmakers.

In the bill which was passed by the House of Representatives on November 26, 2018, the current Democracy Date which is May 29 was deleted and replaced with June 12.

It would be recalled that President Muhammadu Buhari had in 2018 announced that the nation’s Democracy Day would hold on June 12 of every year as against the current arrangement where the ceremony holds on May 29.

However, the National Assembly needed to amend the Public Holiday Act to give the directive a legal backing, to make it binding.

Meanwhile, the Senate concurred with five other House of Representatives bills,

they are the Federal Capital Territory Area Councils Service Commission, Nigeria Natural Medicine Development Agency, Projects Development Agency, Enugu (PRODA) and Data Protection Bill.