Youths Bills Will Be Given Priority Henceforth – Femi Gbajabiamila

The Speaker of the House of Representatives, Rep. Femi Gbajabiamila has come out to say that the House will reconvene plenary to address youth-related bills next week.

He revealed this recently in Abuja, at a national strategy retreat organized by the Young Parliamentarians Forum (YPF) of the National Assembly.

According to him, the retreat is coming at a time of a fresh and intense wave of restiveness sweeping across every part of Nigeria so it has to be given priority.

He added that youths are ready to see rapid and progressive change in the structure of Nigeria and also in the practice of democratic government.

His words, “We all know the House suspended plenary to consider the Budget which is a yearly thing we do to give time to pass the budget to maintain our January to December budget cycle.

“But I do intend to reconvene the House to consider a couple of very important things that will affect Nigerians such as the Electoral Law, the PIB and more importantly the Bills that are already in the system concerning the development of the youth.

“So we will hopefully by next week take one or two days to consider those bills and others.

“I will also want to encourage the young parliamentarians that we will give you all the support necessary.”

“You will agree with me that many times when we talk about the constitution, the makeup of Nigeria when we talk about the structure, when we sing the National Anthem when we talk about the pledge, we always refer nostalgically to our founding fathers.

“Many of them were not even fathers at that time, they were extremely young in their 20s.

“So I think it is time we stopped making reference only to our founding fathers or let those references be few.

“But let’s start talking about our modern fathers and mothers, those of us here the young people out there, this is your time, this is your moment, it is important that we seize it.”

“I think it is time that we expand the definition of Federal Character because the character of a Nation is not just based on your tribe.

“It is based on religion, it is based on where you are from, it is based on your sex, it is based on your age.

“So when you are talking about Federal Character you look at all those things and they are what make up the Federal Character.

“You talk about so so percentage of women, percentage of youth, that is the true meaning of Federal and I think that is what should be reflected in the constitution.”