There was mild drama at the hallow Chamber yesterday as the Senate moved to amend its Standing Orders 2023 as amended to enable it to change its sitting time of 10 am to 11 am every Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday.
This was a sequel to the consideration of a motion sponsored by the Leader of the Senate, Opeyemi Bamidele, APC, Ekiti Central on the need for the Senate to amend its Standing Orders to adjust its sitting time as well as to establish an additional Committee which will have its functions and jurisdictions reflected in the Standing Orders.
Senator Bamidele who noted that the Senate Standing Orders were amended in 2023 to accommodate issues that will make the Orders dynamic to facilitate an effective legislative process, also stressed the importance to further amend the Standing Orders of the Senate, 2023 (as amended) to establish an additional committee on patriation amd repatriation as well as to amend Order 8(2) to reflect the current realities.
The Senate Leader also said that the amendment of the sitting time would synchronise with that of the House of Representatives, adding that the amendment means that Committees or Public Hearings would either sit between 9am – 11 am before plenary or from 3pm – 6pm.
Following the presentation of this motion, Senator Yahaya Abdullahi, PDP, Kebbi North who argued that the Committee on Foreign Affairs could be expanded to handle the issues rather than creating additional committees, said, “The Committee on Foreign Affairs should be expanded to Foreign Affairs and International Affairs and all the other jobs be transferred to the committee instead of creating a new committee.”
At this point, the President of the Senate, Senator Godswill Akpabio who emphasised the suggestions of Abdullahi said that the Senate has a committee on Foreign Affairs, of which the scope of their activities could be expanded. “But if we can’t, then we can bring it up again,” he urged. He however agreed that the sitting time of the Senate be amended to synchronise with the House of Representatives.
Kicking against the motion, the former President of the Senate, Ahmad Lawan, APC, Yobe North who noted that it was unreasonable to shift the sitting time only on grounds for synchronisation with the House of Representatives, urged his colleagues to reconsider the move before taking a hasty decision.
Lawan said, “I don’t know the basics of why we want to shift our sitting from 10 to 11 to finish by 3 pm. To me, we have more energy, our heads are clearer in the morning, and when we are into the day, probably we would have lost some energy and I feel, Mr. President, if we sit plenary, between 10 and 2, our committees would do better. The noon window committee would have to go and sit between four, probably, and six or seven or eight. So, if we don’t have anything, except that we have to synchronise with the House, perhaps, i think we need to look at it again, but if we have other reasons that we must change, that will be fine.”
Responding to Lawan, Akpabio said, “I think that the idea of the Senate sitting by 11 o’clock was started by you in the 9th Senate and the past. We came and met the tradition, but now we have changed it because, during that COVID, we were sitting twice a week. I said no, there is no more COVID. We should sit three times a week.
Lawan on the other hand was seen repeatedly saying, “no, that is not true.”
In trying to ease the tension in the room, Bamidele noted that the reason for the time change was not only for reasons to synchronise with the House but to officially amend it on the Senate Orders as it has unofficially been a norm to sit by 11 pm in the Senate.
The Senate leader said, “As a matter of fact, there have been some days that we sat and the House of Representatives did not sit. There have been moments when we have sat for a whole week with the House of Reps being on recess. So that cannot be the fundamental reason. Distinguished senators being on this floor is only one out of at least the three principal functions that we have been called for. In fact, the representation on this floor is one.
“Our committee assignments is another one and of course, we have our oversight functions aside from all the things that we have been engaging in our various constituencies and on a national scale and sometimes on an international scale.
“Mr. President, a lot of times distinguished senators have to go to bed late and there are no points, having in our rule book that our sitting time is 10 am and every day we sit at 11 o’clock.
“Of course, there are some distinguished senators who will be here 10 for 10, but there have been a lot of times that you Mr. President came at 11 or 10.30 and we have to wait for some of our colleagues that are late to come. We must work our talk.”
Following the tension, Akpabio thereafter called for an emergency executive session at about 12:55 pm for Senators to have an in-house discussion which lasted for over 40 minutes.
At the end of the closed door, Senator Bamidele withdrew the second part of the motion to create additional Committees and urged that the Senate be resolved into the Committee of the Whole to consider the amendment to the sitting time.
The Senate thereafter resolved into the Committee of the whole and after consideration approved the amendment of its sitting time.
In his remarks, Akpabio noted that in the subsequent sittings, if there be need to extend the time of sitting beyond 3pm, there would be an extension of time at quarter to 3pm (2:45pm). Vanguard.
