See Why Senate Ends Plenary Abruptly
- Members on the seats didn’t form a quorum.
- Senate Leader put it into a voice vote before Senate President Ahmed Lawan agreed to adjourn.
The Senate has adjourned plenary abruptly on Thursday.
This was because members of the hallowed chamber vacated their seats, leaving a few lawmakers in attendance.
The attention of Senate President Ahmed Lawan was called to this by an obviously uncomfortable lawmaker representing Benue South Senatorial District, Abba Moro. He cited order 10 of the Senate standing rules to draw the attention of the Senate to the development, adding that the number of senators in the chamber were few and obviously could not be said to have formed a quorum, which is supposed to be one -third of the 109 members.
He, therefore, said the proceedings should be discontinued again because the number of senators in the chamber was insignificantly low.
He was however ruled out of order by the Senate President who claimed that that the scanty nature of the chamber did not indicate that the senators in attendance did not form a quorum. The National Assembly leader further said that the number of senators that signed the attendance register was adequate to form a quorum. According to him, the senators who started the plenary but were no longer in the chamber were either in the tea room or toilets.
The Majority Leader, Yahaya Abdullahi, however, supported of the position of Moro and sought the permission of Lawan to adjourn plenary going by the scanty nature of the chamber.
Lawan then proceeded to suggest that it should be put into a voice vote and the few members in attendance unanimously voted in support and the Senate was subsequently adjourned till Tuesday next week.
The Red Chamber had two more motions to debate upon before the abrupt adjournment.
