{"id":2622,"date":"2022-04-14T14:22:22","date_gmt":"2022-04-14T14:22:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/?p=2622"},"modified":"2022-04-14T14:22:27","modified_gmt":"2022-04-14T14:22:27","slug":"senate-consolidates-passes-nigerian-peace-corps-and-national-unity-corps-bills","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/senate-consolidates-passes-nigerian-peace-corps-and-national-unity-corps-bills\/","title":{"rendered":"Senate Consolidates, Passes Nigerian Peace Corps and National Unity Corps Bills"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>On Tuesday, 12<sup>th<\/sup> April 2022, the Senate passed the consolidated Nigerian Peace Corps bill (SB 271) and the National Unity Corps bill (SB 375), after receiving the report of its Committee on Interior on the two bills. The Nigerian Peace Corps bill was sponsored by Senator Ali Mohammed Ndume (APC: Borno) while the National Unity Corps bill was sponsored by Senator Gyang Istifanus Dung (PDP: Plateau). Upon referral of the two bills to the Committee in December 2020, a public hearing was organised on the bills in May 2021, following which the Committee consolidated the bills which have similar objectives. The consolidated version is a bill for an Act to establish the Nigerian Peace Corps to facilitate Peace, Volunteerism, Community Services, Neighbourhood Watch and Nation Building; and for related matters, 2022. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The bill establishes the Nigerian Peace Corps with\noffices in States, Local government Areas, Area Councils and headquarters in\nthe Federal Capital Territory (FCT). Its objectives include enlisting and training\nyouths as supporting agents of social order to provide a second line of public\nsafety, engaging in peace advocacy, educating communities on security and\nsafety measures, carrying out surveillance and collating data on potential\nsecurity risks within communities for onward transmission to appropriate\nsecurity agencies. Some of the Corps\u2019 other functions include setting up farm\nsettlements across Senatorial Districts to improve youth involvement in\nmecahnised farming for improved food production,&nbsp; setting up desks at various entry points into\nthe country to register tourists and visitors who have been cleared by the\nImmigration Service and other security agencies, and to serve as tour guards\nand guides for a fee. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The Corps shall have a Governing Board consisting of a\nChairman and two members from each of the six geo-political zones of Nigeria. It\nshall also have a National Commandant appointed by the President, who will have\na term of four years and may be reappointed for another term. &nbsp;The Corps will comprise regular members and\nvolunteers, as well as officers and other ranks. The bill stipulates an age\nrange of 18 -35 years for members of the Corps at the time of enlistment. While\nthe Board will be responsible for recruitment of regular members and other\nstaff, the National commandant will be in charge of recruitment of volunteers. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The bill provides for Zonal, State, Local Government\nand Area Council Commands for the Peace Corps, to co-ordinate its activities at\nthese levels. It shall also have a Squadron Command in each educational\ninstitution in the Federation, led by a Squadron Commander, to carry out the\nCorps\u2019 functions in these institutions. The Corps will also provide libraries\nat its headquarters in the FCT and State Commands which will contain materials\nfor the advancement of the knowledge and skills of members of the Corps and for\nresearch. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The Nigerian Peace Corps will be funded by statutory\nand budgetary allocations from the National Assembly, funds from local and\ninternational donor agencies, gifts from the tiers of government, ministries,\nagencies and private corporations, as well as loans, grants, aids and bequests.\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This bill dissolves the existing Peace Corps of\nNigeria and the National Unity and Peace Corps and Savings, and vests the\nassets, funds, interests, obligations and liabilities of the dissolved bodies\nin the Nigerian Peace Corps. It will be recalled that the Nigerian Peace Corps\nbill was passed by the National Assembly in 2017 but failed to receive\npresidential assent, with President Muhammadu Buhari citing security concerns,\nlack of funds and duplication of functions of existing agencies as reasons for\nhis decision. The organisation has however, continued to exist without any statutory\nbacking, sometimes running into conflict with the authorities. If this current\nbill is assented to, then the organisation said to have over 187,000 members\nwill receive the requisite backing to operate. Although the bill that was\nrejected by the President has been reviewed, with some amendments made to the\nmandate of the Corps, will these be sufficient to secure presidential assent\nthis time around? <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>On Tuesday, 12th April 2022, the Senate passed the consolidated Nigerian Peace Corps bill (SB 271) and the National Unity Corps bill (SB 375), after receiving the report of its Committee on Interior on the two bills. The Nigerian Peace Corps bill was sponsored by Senator Ali Mohammed Ndume (APC: Borno) while the National Unity [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2561,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2622","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2622","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2622"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2622\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2628,"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2622\/revisions\/2628"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2561"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2622"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2622"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2622"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}