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Child Rights: Uwais' Position on Tobacco Bill Faulted  

Lawyer-Aides in the National Assembly (LANASS) has faulted the position of the wife of the former Chief Justice of Nigeria (CJN), Mrs. Maryam Uwais, to the effect that Chairman of Senate Committee on Health, Senator Iyabo Obasanjo-Bello, violated the rights of the young persons by not allowing them to present their position at the just concluded public hearing on the Tobacco Control Bill. Uwais had reportedly sent a protest letter to the Senate President, Senator David Mark, on the purported breach of the rights of some secondary school students who had stormed the National Assembly to witness the public hearing. The body, in a statement issued yesterday in Abuja, said that while Obasanjo-Bello based her decision on the provisions of the 1999 Constitution, Uwais had anchored her protest on the provisions of Section 3 of the Child Rights Act. . . .

LANASS said that it could not agree more because "these young people are not even supposed to be found in places where such topics are being discussed, ab-initio."

It observed that Uwais in her position cited Section 19 of the Child Rights Act with the footnote-"Responsibilities of a Child and Parent" but that she omitted to mention Section 20 with the footnote-"Parent, etc., to provide guidance with respect to Child's Responsibilities."

Accusing Uwais of insincerity for citing only Section 19 without taking it together with Section 20, LANASS argued that it is only when "both sections are read together as a whole that sufficient legal analysis of that part of the Act might have been done."

The body also tackled Uwais for berating Obasanjo-Bello for purportedly misconstruing the Senate Committee Public hearing as a court.

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