Senate Majority Leader Opeyemi Bamidele has resisted growing criticism that the Senate routinely ignores bills passed by the House of Representatives, describing such claims as “misleading and unfair.”
Speaking on the Senate floor during yesterday’s plenary, Bamidele insisted that the upper legislative chamber remains committed to legislative collaboration and due process, citing recent actions as proof.
“I want to use this opportunity to respond to what was published in some newspapers about the Senate not working on concurrent bills from the House of Representatives,” Bamidele said. “Let me say for the record that we have been doing what we are supposed to do and that only last week, this Senate concurred on six bills from the House,” he added.
He emphasised that while the principle of reciprocity guides both chambers, the Senate would not rubber-stamp legislation to maintain harmony.
“Yes, while we have the principle of chamber reciprocity, Mr President, the principle does not necessarily mean ‘garbage in, garbage out’,” he said. “We will continue to consider concurrent bills sent from the House, just as they do with ours. Our commitment is to the Nigerian people, not institutional rivalry.”
Senate President Godswill Akpabio echoed Bamidele’s remarks, urging calm and mutual respect between the two chambers.
“Last week, we attended to about six of those bills, and this week, I know at least two are already lined up,” Akpabio said. “Let our brothers in the House know we are not taking their work lightly. It takes two hands to clap—we’ll keep working together.”
The Senate’s response follows a tense session in the House, during which lawmakers rejected a Senate-sponsored bill to establish a Federal Orthopaedic Hospital in Obokun, Osun State.
The bill, which had passed through the Senate and was listed for second reading in the House, was stepped down after multiple members expressed frustration over what they saw as the Senate’s disregard for House-originated bills.
House Majority Leader Julius Ihonvbere moved the motion for the bill’s second reading. Still, Minority Leader Kingsley Chinda seconded it “reluctantly,” pointing to a backlog of unattended bills from the House languishing in the Senate.
“I will reluctantly second the motion,” Chinda said. “We have too many bills ignored by the Senate.”
Rivers lawmaker Awaji-Inombek Abiante said two of his bills had remained idle in the Senate since 2024.
“This also happened in the 9th Assembly. I don’t know how we can continue this relationship if our efforts are repeatedly disregarded,” he said.
Other lawmakers, including Ahmed Jaha of Borno, called for formalised mechanisms to ensure that both chambers urgently treat each other’s legislation equally.
Speaker Tajudeen Abbas, however, revealed that previous attempts to establish such protocols had failed.
“The clerk informed me we have 146 bills currently with the Senate. I have over 10 of them. Some have been there for over six months. We don’t know what is really going on,” Abbas lamented.
Ultimately, Chinda withdrew his secondment of the motion, and the bill was rejected.
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