DISAGREEMENT between the Senate and the House of Representatives on harmonisation of certain aspects of the Code of Conduct Amendment Bill, recently passed by the two chambers, may have stalled its transmission to President Muhammadu Buhari for assent.

The bill, which Vanguard gathered, was expected to be added to nine others transmitted last week to the President for assent, was dropped abruptly, following inability of the lower chamber to harmonise the Senate version.

It was further gathered that a special meeting held at the instance of the Senate President, Dr Bukola Saraki, and attended by the the Speaker of the lower chamber, Yakubu Dogara, failed to reach a common ground on certain aspects of the bill.

The meeting, which representatives of the two chambers held to resolve grey areas of the bill, ended without harmonisation of some of the aspects seen by others to be controversial.

Members of the upper legislative chamber, aggrieved on how their leader, Bukola Saraki, was tried by the Code of Conduct Tribunal, had planned to override the President in case of his veto to the bill after 30 days from the day of transmission to him, but following criticisms that trailed the the development, Dogara is said to be under intense pressure to withdraw the House support for its passage.

Recall that the Senate, on Thursday, October 27, passed the Code of Conduct (amendment) Bill, 2016, giving the National Assembly the powers to appoint staff of both the Code of Conduct Bureau and the Code of ConductTribunal.

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