Uproar in Senate over Abaribe’s bill for Armed Forces Service Commission

By Kamarudeen Ogundele & Tunde Opalana

There was uproar in the Senate on Wednesday over a bill seeking the establishment of an Armed Forces Service Commission.

The bill tagged, “Armed Forces Service Commission 2021,” and sponsored by the Minority Leader, Senator Enyinanya Abaribe (PDPAbia), was later stepped down for “national unity.”

The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) lawmaker later said at its national secretariat in Abuja that he was begged to drop the bill.

Justifying his lateness to the official presentation of the report of the Governor Bala Mohammed-led 2019 Election Review Committee to party leaders, he said, “I was busy in the Assembly giving them fight.

I gave them a tough fight today because that is what you sent us there to do. You will hear about it tomorrow.

“It was very tough to the extent that we called for a division and they have to call me to beg me.”

The bill read for the first time on March 3, 2020 seeks to get the National Assembly to give effect to the clear provisions of section 219 of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria 1999 as amended.

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Abaribe lamented that the composition and appointments of the service chiefs had been tilted to favour the north against the south.

He said: “The Armed Forces of Nigeria is a National institution of Nigeria that should be insulated by the vagaries of political divisions and therefore the framers of the constitution in their wisdom inserted this section to prevent a situation where our National symbol of unity and strength could be sacrificed on the alter of political temperament.