The House of Representatives has condemned the activities of the Financial Reporting Council of Nigeria, including its decision to fix the tenure of the leadership of religious organisations.
Passing a resolution on Wednesday at a session presided over by the Speaker, Mr. Yakubu Dogara, the House also ordered a public hearing on FRC laws.
This follows a motion sponsored by the Minority Leader of the House, Mr. Leo Ogor.
Lawmakers stated that no agency of the Federal Government was empowered by any law passed by the National Assembly to determine how many years a religious leader should serve in office.
They noted that the FRC Act 2011 did not make provision for the tenure of office of religious bodies or non-profit organisations.
Leading the debate, Ogor said the FRC being a product of the National Assembly, any legislation or code it formulated should have been mandatorily approved by the same National Assembly before it could be applied.
The motion stated, “The House is concerned that the Governance Code, formulated by the Council, as it relates to heads of non-profit making organisations, is a clear usurpation of the powers of the National Assembly as stipulated in Section 4 of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, 1999.
“Also concerned that the National Assembly has not, in any way, approved the corporate governance code as it did with the Building Code.
“The House is convinced that codes of corporate governance must be in conformity with international best practices.
“Worried that an overzealous chief executive officer of a regulatory body can misinterpret or misapply the provisions of the code as can be clearly seen in the case of the FRC.
“No law, enacted by the National Assembly, empowers any agency to set the tenure of office for heads of non-profit organisations,” he added.
The Chairman, House Committee on Ethics/Privileges, Mr. Nicholas Ossai, noted that fixing how long a religious leader should be in office was out of FRC’s bounds.
“This is because we are talking about the things of God here.
“The tenure of religious leaders is determined by God, not man.
“Besides, delegated legislation like the FRC code should have been forwarded to the National Assembly for approval.
“The code in question was never forwarded to the National Assembly.”
Mr. Garba Mohammed-Dhatti, called for monitoring of the activities of agencies to prevent them from abusing their delegated powers.
“Overzealous heads of agencies can abuse delegated powers.
“They have to be properly monitored to save us from embarrassment”.
The controversial FRC code, among others, sets a 20-year tenure for heads of religious groups and civil rights organisations.
The law forced Pastor Enoch Adeboye to retire as head of RCCG Nigeria last week.
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