By Ezrel Tabiowo
The Senate yesterday moved to prohibit chemical weapons production and transfer in Nigeria when it passed a bill for second reading to so do.
The bill which was sent to the Senate by President Goodluck Jonathan in March, this year, was first read on the floor of the Senate on April 18, 2013.
The Senate leader, Victor Ndoma-Egba, while leading the debate on the bill which also seeks to establish a National Authority for the effective implementation of the Chemical Weapon Convention in Nigeria, said the bill aimed at establishing a body that will serve as the national focal point for effective liaison with the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) and other state Parties to the Convention.
He said the bill if passed into law would, amongst others, facilitate the destruction of all chemical weapons that may have been abandoned in the country before getting into wrongful hands.
It would also facilitate the destruction of chemical weapons production facilities and monitor the conversion of such facilities to other uses; prevent untold sufferings and annihilation of populations by preventing such weapons from getting into wrong hands like insurgents and terrorist groups or lunatic dictators.
The bill while facilitating the enforcement of the prohibition in respect of persons (natural or legal) within the territory of Nigeria would also enhance international cooperation in the peaceful use of chemistry in relevant areas of national and global development, etc.
He added that the bill, if passed into law, would enable the country meet its commitment to the convention as well as bring its provisions within the constitutional requirements of section 12 of the 1999 Constitution that a treaty was not justifiable in our domestic courts unless it has been domesticated or enacted into law by an Act of the National Assembly.
Most of the Senators who contributed to the debate supported the bill on the on the grounds that it would help prevent chemical weapons from getting into wrong hands in the country, particularly terrorists or insurgents whose activities continually result in the death of innocent Nigerians.
The bill which was forwarded to the Senate Committees on Science and Technology and Judiciary for more legislative inputs is expected back within the next four weeks.
