By Haruna Salami
The Senate Tuesday adjourned plenary session for one week after sitting for just 10 minutes for lack of quorum.
Barely three minutes into the session that began at about 10.55 am, the Minority Whip of the Senate, Senator Philip Aduda, PDP FCT, cited Order 10 (3) of the Senate’ s standing rules to draw the attention of his colleagues to the lack of quorum and the need for the adjournment .
The lawmaker pointed out that the Order stated that plenary session can only be held when the required quorum of 37 members out of 109 is formed, adding that without that the Senate should adjourn the sitting till next legislative day.
Aduda said: “We are less than 10, Mr. President. I want to move that since we have not formed quorum, we may therefore adjourn but in doing so, I want to say that the Senate is empty because various committees are carrying out oversight duties, they are all over the country, ensuring that the budget is performing.
However,Deputy President of the Senate, Ike Ekweremadu who seconded the motion drew the attention of the Senate to the fact that they were more than 10, but certainly not up to 38. “We are somewhere between 15 and 20, just for the record; we are not less than 10 but less than 20.”
Accordingly, the President of the Senate, Bukola Saraki put it to voice votes and got overwhelming support from the 20 senators in the chamber, that plenary session should be adjourned.
But after adoption of the motion Saraki said, “it is important that our members who are not here, we should communicate to them, those on oversight to finish what they have during the week – in the area of oversight.
“Some of the findings from the oversight are important and it is important that the exercise is done diligently and we should ensure that it is completed by the end of this week. That is in line with order 10 (3).”
The Senate Leader, Sen. Ahmed Lawan (APC, Yobe North) said, “having adopted this motion, it is mandatory that we stand down all the items on the order paper to the next legislative week, precisely next week Tuesday, November 20, 2018.”
This was seconded by the Senate Deputy minority leader, Senator Emmanuel Bwacha (PDP Taraba South).
Meanwhile, it was observed that out of the 20 senators who attended the plenary session, none of the seven female senators was in attendance while some of the remaining 102 male senators in attendance were the Senators Saraki, Ekweremadu, Lawan, Bwacha, Aduda,
Abu Ibrahim, Rafiu Ibrahim, Joshua Lidani, Emmanuel Paulker among others.