Senator Dino Melaye has heavily criticized the move by Nigeria’s House of Representatives to repeal the Quarantine Act and enact the Control of Infectious Diseases bill.
The new bill seeks to empower the president, the minister of health as well as the director-general of NCDC, and the institutions they head, to make regulations on quarantining, vaccination, and prevention of infectious diseases in Nigeria.
The Quarantine Act provides a penalty of N500 for defaulters, but the new bill proposes a penalty of between N200,000 and N5 million as well as jail terms.
The bill, which has 82 sections, scaled second reading before it was stood down on Tuesday.
However, reacting on Friday, Dino Melaye described the bill sponsored by House Speaker Femi Gbajabiamila as “evil and satanic.”
He further stated that the bill was initiated to destroy the civil and human rights of Nigerians.
“THE PROPOSED BILL FOR THE PROHIBITION AND CONTROL OF INFECTIOUS DISEASES; AN EVIL AND SATANIC LAW INITIATED TO DESTROY CIVIL AND HUMAN RIGHTS OF NIGERIANS, UNDER THE GUISE OF INFECTIOUS DISEASES CONTROL,”
Dino wrote on Twitter.
Dino Melaye, a member of the 8th Nigerian National Assembly, however, shared some parts he considered as “STRANGE PROVISIONS OF THE BILL”
