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All stakeholders would be carried along for the Bill to be passed into law

The Ogun State House of Assembly has said it will consider a process for the Anti-Open Grazing Bill in February.

The Speaker of the State House of Assembly, Olakunle Oluomo, who disclosed this while on Friday, lamented that the bill would have been passed into law but had to be suspended due to the effect of COVID-19 second wave.

Oluomo said for the bill to be passed into law, all stakeholders would be carried along.

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He said the bill was still on the order paper of the Assembly and would be considered in February.

“The bill requires the input of many stakeholders and COVID-19 did not allow a big public hearing to take place. However, it remains on our order paper and slated for further legislative action in February,” he said.

The Special Adviser to the Ogun State Governor on Public Communications, Remmy Hazzan, while speaking on the efforts of the executive to ensure that the anti-open grazing bill was passed into law, said, “Every law has its peculiarity and having been a parliamentarian myself for not less than eight years, I understand that there are processes by which laws are passed so if that particular law was delayed for some reasons, there might be other challenges that have not allowed the law to pass.

“But of course, it’s going to be within the tenet of the law and its viability cannot be overemphasized. So, at this point in time, if that is the way to go, I am not seeing anything wrong with it. But, of course, the process of enacting laws must be followed to the last letter.”

He stated further the House of Assembly will determine when the bill would be passed into law.

Meanwhile, Hazzan said the state government would do everything within the ambit of the law to kick out killer herdsmen from its forest reserves and other places.

He said, “Anything that is within the framework of the Constitution that will promote peace and security over our people, which is a mandate for every governor in Section 7, we have been doing and we are even ready to do more as far as it’s within the framework of the law.”

“The issue of the forest areas has become a major concern to most of the South-West states. We are in a tropical rainforest and these areas have turned out to be the largely unpoliced areas of our vast landscape. To that extent, as a region, the initiative of Amotekun came up.”

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