The Senate, on Tuesday, dismissed the allegations by the House of Representatives that the red chamber had persistently delayed in granting concurrence to most legislative initiatives emanating from the green chamber.
The Senate also said it would never joke with any legislative initiative or request from the House of Representatives, revealing that the Senate considered at least six of such concurrence bills just last week.
President of the Senate, Godswill Akpabio and Leader of the Senate, Opeyemi Bamidele (APC, Ekiti Central),made the clarification during plenary on Tuesday.
Daily Trust reported that the House of Representatives had resolved to suspend further consideration of bills originating from the Senate, citing persistent delays in the red chamber's concurrence to House-passed bills.
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The green chamber also accused the Senate of deliberately stalling the legislative process, citing its failure to act on over 140 bills passed by the House of Representatives, many of which were sponsored by its Speaker, Hon. Abbas Tajudeen.
But Akpabio specifically said the Senate "cannot joke with concurrence bills from the House of Representatives," saying the red chamber would continue to work, as effectively as possible, with lawmakers in the green chamber.
"It takes two hands to clap. We have been attending to the bills from the House of Representatives. We are still going to attend to them. And we will continue to work together in the interest of Nigeria and Nigerians," Akpabio said.
While presenting one of the bills from the House of Representatives at the plenary on Tuesday, Bamidele said the first two businesses of the day "are concurrence bills from the House of Representatives."
He said, "For the record, we have been doing what we are supposed to do. Only last week, the Senate concurred to six bills from the House of Representatives. We know we have the principle of reciprocity that governs our operations. But this does not necessarily mean garbage in, garbage out.
"We have the duty, as the foremost democratic institution in the country, to exercise due diligence on the bills. We will continue to consider concurrence bills from the House of Representatives the same way they considered our own bills. We will ensure that it is given attention in overriding public interest. I just want to say this for the record.
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"We have been attending to these concurrence bills from the House of Representatives. We will continue to do what we are supposed to do consistent with our mandates under the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, 1999 (as amended)."
