The Enugu State House of Assembly has passed 23 executive bills and 14 motions in its second session.
The Speaker of the House, Rt Hon Uche Ugwu, stated this at a plenary on Wednesday to formally end the second session of the Assembly. THE WHISTLER reports that the third legislative session begins June 12th, 2025.
Ugwu said among the impactful bills passed into law were the Enugu State Electricity Regulatory Bill, New Enugu City Management Bill and the Enugu State Geographic Information System, EGIS Bill, among others.
He also said the House of Assembly also moved some ‘problem-solving motions’, including the call for the dismounting and removal of roadblocks mounted by the military along Ugwuonyeama/Ninth Mile Road and the stoppage of the Road Safety officials from operating on state roads instead of the Federal Roads.
He also mentioned the bill seeking to provide internal security entitled: “A Bill for a Law to Provide for the Maintenance of Internal Security, Vigilance and Order in the State and for Other Connected Purposes, House Bill No.b7, 2025”, which passed a second reading among the remarkable motions.
Contributing to the debate on the bill, Hon Iloabuchi Aniagu, member representing Nkanu West State Constituency, said that when passed, it would reduce insecurity in the state by sixty percent.
According to him, the bill would end the crisis between the traditional rulers of communities and presidents general of town unions as to who would oversee security in their communities.
Quoting him, “If the bill is passed, it will reduce insecurity up to sixty percent, and also stop the PG and the Igwe dragging who should be in charge of security in their community.”
He posited that the bill, when passed, would make the landlords and hotel owners put surveillance cameras in their areas to check and track criminals, as well as “check the white garment church leaders and native doctors from taking undue advantage of the citizens”.
The member representing Igbo-Eze South, Hon Harrison Ogara, said the bill would have been done years ago to check the activities of evil men “who commit atrocities in the name of religion or traditional medical practices”.
Ogara said that if the law had been in place, incidences such as the killing of four children of the same parents in his constituency “by a so-called man of God and that of the native doctor that buried people alive at Ezeagu would not have taken place”.
He said, “I rise to support the bill. It is timely but left to me, it came late, but no time is late. It is a waiting time bomb that would consume everybody. With the bill, there should be circumspection of how people should practise their religions.”
He urged the executive to implement the bill when passed to achieve the desired motive it is designed to accomplish.
Hon Chima Obieze, representing Ezeagu, said the bill was overdue and should have been enacted before now to check crimes.
He said, “I concur with some portions of the bill. We need to checkmate the so-called churches who indulge in crimes in the name of Jesus Christ.”
The member representing Udi South, Hon Okey Aneke, berated the rate young men were rushing into traditional worshipping and kidnapping to make quick money.
According to him, “Many guys are into kidnapping. The rate young people are getting into traditional worship is alarming. Anybody found with human parts should be arrested; he is a killer. There is no Okeite without human parts.”
