Speaker of the House of Representatives, Yakubu Dogara, has said that the House would expedite action on a proposed bill against discrimination of victims of insurgency in the country.

The Speaker made this known recently in his office, in Abuja, while receiving report from the committee he set up to review laws of the federation, according to a statement issued by his spokesman Turaki Hassan.

He said the proposed bill, along with 53 others, would immediately undergo first reading on the floor of the House for deliberation. The speaker said the House will soon pass the Insurgency and Militancy Victims and Stigmatisation Prohibition Bill 2016.

"I believe that will help a lot especially some of us that are advocating for the IDPs and this is something that we want to take immediately together with the other 53 bills.

"Since it is in our hands we will do all that is required for us to do and ensure that we list them and read them for the first time and thereafter we put them properly in the legislative mill,” he said.

Dogara commended the members of the committee for discharging their duties diligently which led to the presentation of 130 bills in a day for first reading; saying that effort changed the history of the House. He further said that by next week when all bills and motions passed in the last one year are compiled, the House would again record another unprecedented feat in the history of Nigerian Legislature.

Chairman of the committee, Dr. Ladi Hamalai told the Speaker that another set of 54 bills had been prepared for presentation to the House while 105 laws were analysed in the past four months. Giving a highlight on the Insurgency Victims Destigmatisation Prohibtion Bill 2016, she said that the committee was told that many of the girls and other victims of insurgency were being stigmatized, hence the bill to make it an offence to stigmatise and harass victims of insurgency.

Hamalai, who is the Director General of the National Institute for Legislative Studies (NILS), said the new bills also include a bill on the Nigeria Delta Commission to be under a ministry which would provide policy directions and also another bill that would deal with the financing aspect of the North East Development Commission bill.

•Photo shows Speaker Dogara.

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