Buhari rejects Peace Corps bill, views it as duplication of existing security agencies

Hope of promoters to have the Peace Corps of Nigeria officially becoming another national security agency, has been dashed as President Muhammadu Buhari has withheld his assent on the bill.

The Peace Corps of Nigeria establishment bill was passed by the Senate on November 25, 2016, soon after the House of Representatives passed the same bill.

It was in December 2017 sent to President Buhari by the Clerk of the National Assembly, Sani Omolori for his assent.

But in a letter Speaker Yakubu Dogara read at plenary of the House of Representatives on Tuesday, President Buhari communicated his rejection of the bill on the grounds that such an organization will amount to duplication of existing security agencies.

Proponents of the bill had argued that if passed into law will provide job opportunity and assist the nation’s unemployment issues.

Since the bill was muted in the National Assembly and the process of signing it into law began, it has received clear fierce opposition by the Nigerian Police.

Not hiding its opposition, the Police had on February 17, 2017, stormed the organization’s headquarters in Abuja where it arrested the organisation’s boss, Dickson Akoh, and no less than 49 of its members. It also sealed up the organisation’s headquarters.

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Police had then accused him of defrauding job seekers of money using the Peace Corps, that was registered as a non-governmental organisation.

Akoh was later released after denying the allegation, while a later ruling of the Federal High Court in Abuja, instructed the Police to unseal the organisation’s premises as well as pay the sum of N12.5 million as damages to the group.

 

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