The House of Representatives has revisited the controversial Quarantine Act (Repeal and Enactment) Bill 2020, also known as the Infectious Diseases Control Bill, passing the legislation at the plenary on Tuesday.

The legislation is titled, ‘A Bill for an Act to Repeal the Quarantine Act, Cap. Q2, Laws of the Federation of Nigeria 2004, and Enact the Control of Infectious Diseases Bill, Make Provisions Relating to Quarantine and Make Regulations for Preventing the Introduction into and Spread in Nigeria of Dangerous Infectious Diseases.’

The Speaker, Femi Gbajabiamila; Chairmen of the House Committees on Health Institutions and Health Services, Paschal Obi and Tanko Sununu, respectively, jointly sponsored the bill.

The bill was introduced in April 2020 when Nigeria was about to be locked down to curtail the spread of COVID-19.

The committee had laid the report before the House since February 10, 2021, while the chamber had kept it in abeyance.

Widely referred to as the ‘NCDC bill,’ the report on it had been due for presentation since June 2020 but for the condemnations that greeted the legislation.

Sununu, while laying the report on the bill, had noted that the bill was referred to his panel on May 12, 2020.

The House had on May 1, 2020, passed the bill for second reading, with a plan to skip its referral to a committee to conduct public hearing but to consider it for third reading the same day. The stiff opposition by some members of the chamber had forced the House to suspend the process.

Nationwide protests had greeted the proposed law, with many Nigerians going online to criticise the bill, raising concerns over some of its proposals. Using the hashtag, #StoptheNCDCBill, critics of the proposal, especially on Twitter, listed the controversial clauses as including Sections 3(8), 8, 13, 15, 16, 17(4)(5) and (7), 19, 20, 23, 24, 25, 30, 47 and 58.

Meanwhile, Gbajabiamila, in his address on Tuesday, noted that while Nigeria, like the rest of the world, was immersed in the global response to the pandemic, the pandemic still persists, “evolving in ways that portend danger for our people here at home and all over the world.”

The Speaker recalled that the House initiated a long-overdue effort in 2020 to reform the statutory framework for public health emergency response in our country.

He said, “At that time, our good faith efforts were wilfully mischaracterised by individuals who saw the moment as an opportunity to score cheap political points and earn the passing accolades of the ignorant and misinformed.

“Today, the whole world is grappling with the issues we sought to identify and address then. There are many lessons to be learned from that experience. Most paramount of them all, is that public policy is serious business and the welfare of the Nigerian people must never be surrendered on the altar of cheap populism or the pursuit of short-term political advantage.”

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