The House of Representatives on Friday restated its determination to pass a bill ‎to regulate non-governmental organisations, NGOs.

Several Nigerians including the former chairman of the National Human Rights Commission, Chidi Odinkalu, have critic‎ised the bill describing it as unnecessary.

Such critics say there are already enough existing laws that only need to be implemented and that the bill was designed to muscle NGOs and civil society organisations, CSOs.

The Deputy Majority Leader of the House, Umar Jibril, has, however, defended the decision of the lawmakers to pass the new NGO bill.

In a statement sent to PREMIUM TIMES by an aide to the Speaker of the House, Mr. Jibril alleged that “some NGOs collected funds for North East IDPs and disappeared.”

He said religious organisations will not be affected by the proposed bill. He also said “some NGOs are used to fund the activities of terrorists and insurgents‎.”