Senate stands down bill on inauguration of National Assembly

The Senate on Wednesday stood down a bill for an act to provide for the inauguration of the National Assembly to ensure the smooth transfer of legislative power from the outgoing National Assembly to the incoming.
The lawmakers cited constitutional matters as reason for stepping down the bill.
The resolution of the Senate followed the lead debate of the general principles of the bill by the sponsor, Senator Gabriel Suswam during the plenary.
Leading the debate, Suswam said that the Bill was read for the first time on September 25.
He said that the objective of the bill was to ensure a smooth transition of legislative powers from the outgoing national assembly to the incoming assembly.
This, he said was after the dissolution of the outgoing assembly by the President in the exercise of his powers under Section 64(3) of the constitution.
He said: “Specifically, this bill seeks to ensure clarity and certainty with respect to the day/date for convening and inaugurating the incoming assembly.”
Seconding the bill, Senator Eyinnaya Abaribe noted that the senate could not be inaugurated except by the proclamation of the president.
“Assuming you have a president that refuses to proclaim, how do we sit. This is the issue that we are making sure that we entrench along other good things about democracy.
“It is very good that we continue to entrench democracy,”Abaribe said.
Senate Deputy Minority Leader, Emmanuel Bwacha, said that the bill was a masterpiece that would moderate the senate’s proceedings.
“What happened in the 8th Senate and even the 9th Senate, if there had been a bill like this in place, there would have been no need for the issues on inauguration or even the court process that we went through that almost divided us at the period of inauguration.
“The bill is a demonstration of the fact that we want to moderate ourselves just as we have laws that regulate agencies as empowered by the constitution,” he said.
In his contribution, Senator Adamu Aliero raised Orders 63 and 64 of the Senate’s standing rules which states:
“The Senate and the House of Representatives shall sit for a period of not less than 181 days in a year.
“The Senate and the House of Representatives shall stand dissolved at the expiration of a period of four years commencing from the date of the first sitting of the House.
“The first sitting will be done immediately after a proclamation by the president and when the proclamation is signed, the senate reconvenes.
“I doubt very much that what Suswam is proposing will not go against the provisions of the Constitution,” he said.