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House of Reps approves devolution of powers to states

July 27, 2017 1:22 PM

210 members of the lower legislative chamber voted in favour of the bill, while 71 voted against it, with eight abstaining from the vote.

210 members of the lower legislative chamber voted in favour of the bill, while 71 voted against it, with 8 abstaining from the vote.

The amendment seeks to alter the "second schedule, part I & II to move certain items to the Concurrent Legislative List to give more legislative powers to States. It also delineates the extent to which the federal legislature and state assemblies can legislate on the items that have been moved to the concurrent legislative list."

In an earlier vote on Wednesday, the upper legislative chamber voted against the bill with 46 senators voting in favour, but 48 voting against.

Before the process commenced, Speaker of the House, Yakubu Dogara, clarified that clauses that have already been rejected by the Senate are already dead because the House's position alone cannot make them scale through.

He said the process is merely an exercise to put the chamber's position on the bills on record.

Even though a greater number of representatives backed the bill, it still wasn't enough to pass it anyway as it fell well short of the two-third majority of 240 votes.