‘NOT TOO YOUNG TO RUN’ BILL RECEIVES PRESIDENTIAL NOD

President Muhammadu Buhari has signed the ‘Not Too Young To Run’ Bill into law.

President Buhari assented to the bill at the Council Chambers of the Presidential Villa in Abuja.

The Personal Assistant to the President on New Media, Mr. Bashir Ahmad, posted two videos on Twitter which shows President Buhari signing the bill into law.

President Buhari had promised to assent to the bill while addressing the nation in a live broadcast to mark the Democracy Day.

Both Senate and the House of Representatives had passed the bill in 2017.

Following the President’s approval, the minimum age for national and state assembly members will now be twenty five.

The primary aim of the bill is to increase the participation of young people in politics, as more than half of the nation’s population is below the age of thirty.

Meanwhile, the Deputy President of the Senate, Senator Ike Ekweremadu, has commended President Muhammadu Buhari, for assenting to the Bill for an Act to alter the provisions of the Constitution to reduce the age qualification for some political officers, saying that the National Assembly had delivered on its promise.

Chief Ekweremadu, who is also the Chairman of the Senate Committee on the Review of the 1999 Constitution, said the new amendment to the Constitution would open up the political space for the Nigerian youth, urging them to capitalize on it to take their proper place in the scheme of things.

He, however, urged President Buhari to also attend to other Constitution Amendment Bills awaiting his assent, describing them as critical to good governance of the nation.

NGOZI NWEKE