Members of the House of Representatives may no longer be addressed as ‘Honourables’ as the Speaker, Femi Gbajabiamila, has sponsored a bill seeking to change the lawmakers’ appellation to ‘Representatives.’
The legislation is titled ‘A Bill for an Act to Amend the Legislative Houses (Powers and Privileges) Act, 2017.’
Already, members of the 9th House, including the Speaker, have been using ‘Rep.’ before their names, instead of the ‘Honourable’ or ‘Hon’ that has been in use for ages.
Gbajabiamila is now seeking to legalise the change in the “address and designation of a member” through the amendment bill.
The bill seeks to insert new Sections 21 and 22 into the Legislative Houses (Powers And Privileges) Act, which read, “(21) A member of the Senate shall be designated and addressed as a Senator and shall be entitled to have before his name the word ‘Senator’ during his term in office and for life.
“(22) A member of the House of Representative shall be designated and addressed as a ‘Representative’ and shall be entitled to have before his name the word ‘Representative’ during his term in office and for life.”
The Speaker wrote in the explanatory note, “This bill seeks to define the designation and address before the name of a member of the National Assembly.”