The House of Representatives has called on President Bola Tinubu to appoint Nine Justices that will make the Supreme Court attain its full complement of 21 Justices.
This comes on a day legislators adopted a motion on the need for government to ban all educational materials promoting lesbianism, gay, bi-sexual and transgender, LGBT.
Section 230 sub section 2 of the 1999 Constitution as amended states:
The Supreme Court of Nigeria consists of the Chief Justice of Nigeria and such number of Justices of the Supreme Court, not exceeding twenty-one, as may be prescribed by an Act of the National Assembly.
Nigeria’s Apex court has never had the full complement of 21 Justices even as it currently consists of the Chief Justice and 10 other Justices.
Patrick Umoh comes under matters of urgent national importance to underscore the imperatives of granting the apex court the full complement of its 21 Justices.
This, he says, is to expedite the hearing and determination of matters for effective and efficient Justice delivery.
The lawmaker’s call comes weeks after a similar admonition from the Nigeria Bar Association.
In another legislative matter, the House calls for an outright ban on all inappropriate educational materials promoting LGBT across schools.
The parliament also wants a probe into the non implementation of the Basic Healthcare Provision Fund in the interest of the poor masses
Rivers State lawmaker, Awaji-Inombek Abiante, seeks the leave of the House to urge the Central Bank of Nigeria and the Federal Ministry of Finance release the approved N27.6 billion to host communities from the penalties of gas flaring as compensation for devastation.
The House also tasked the central government to make provisions for the rehabilitation and decongestion of the nation’s correctional centres in the 2024 appropriation bill to avoid miscarriage of justice.
