The Senate has approved the establishment of the Nigerian Peace Corps, NPC, a move that will increase government recurrent expenditure if it gets presidential assent.
This followed the passage of the bill, tagged “Nigerian Peace Corps (NPC) Bill, 2016” at the upper legislative chamber Thursday.
It would be recalled that the House of Representatives had already passed the bill earlier in June this year.
Leading a motion on the bill, Chairman of the Senate Committee on Interior, Bayero Nafada, said that the Peace Corps when established would be domiciled in the federal Ministry of Interior.
According to him, the Corps would facilitate peace, community services, nation-building among others.
Senate President, Bukola Saraki, then put the issue to a voice vote and majority of the lawmakers voted in support of it.
Saraki, in his remark, explained that though the Peace Corps had been existing for years, the passage of the bill would institutionalize it as one of Nigeria’s para-military agencies.
He further stated that a conference committee would be formed, made up of members from both chambers of the National Assembly, to harmonise bill before it would be presented to President Muhammadu Buhari for assent.
The Peace Corps bill, however, has been subject of debate, as some people who are opposed to it argued that it was just a duplication of agencies.
They say that the Nigerian Security and Civil Defence Corps, NSCDC, is already playing the role for which the Peace Corp was being created.
But Supporters of the bill say it would further help government in providing employment for the teeming population of unemployed Nigerians.
It remains to be seen whether President Muhammadu Buhari would assent to the bill, given that it would add an additional wage burden on the federal government, which is already complaining of paucity of funds.
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