By Nnamdi Elekwachi
The National Assembly is by law required to sit at least not fewer than 181 days in a year. On approximation, that is a 3-day weekly sitting because plenary sittings and committee meetings, according to the standing rules, are held from Tuesdays through Thursdays of every week, barring emergency sessions. But this is not to be, especially as successive Assemblies have had to convene less than half the lawfully required number of days in a year and members still earned all their pays and perquisites regardless.
The Saraki-led Eighth Senate, for example, sat for less than seventy days in one year of its four-year life. Wait for it, even the Ahmed Lawan-led Ninth Senate sat for just sixty-six (66) days in the 2021 legislative year, yet ‘distinguished colleagues’ received all their princely salaries and allowances in both instances. This is the reason Nigerians have intensified the call for a part-time legislature, one whose members’ earnings, to be known as ‘sitting allowance’, is to be structured and paid based on the number of sitting appearances.
That call has become even more crucial because, in Nigeria today, there’s hardly a senator or representative who can claim to have registered an attendance of two-thirds of the 181-day yearly sitting; that is 120 days or so. What is more, not even the senate itself convenes up to that number of days annually for the most part. What this means in effect is that our representatives are paid more for, shall we say, representing less. And I will bet my boots Nigerians will get disappointed if the National Assembly ever displays its attendance list or register for public scrutiny.
So why will the National Assembly, the Senate in this case, suspend an ‘erring’ member for ‘six months’ to the detriment of her constituency in a supposed representative democracy? That is an overkill!
Should we spread the days of Senator Natasha’s suspension to cover plenary sittings alone, it means that the suspended senator has but one day – of the 181 sitting days – in a year to represent her constituency, Kogi Central Senatorial District. But if we spread the six-month suspension to cover a six-month period, and not only plenary sittings, then Natasha has about 72 sittings to be absent in 2025. That is an injustice, not even against the female lawmaker but against the Nigerians she represents. Shouldn’t political representation, as a matter of right, apply equally to all constituencies and zones in Nigeria?
Six months of a four-year tenure is already one-eighth of the entire tenure of an Assembly; and should we situate this within the academic context where undergraduates spend – on the average – a study period of four years, then the six months become a semester which is a half session. How can a student who did not attend classes for a whole semester pull off excellent grades? How can the people of Kogi Central Senatorial District be well represented if they missed six months of an Assembly’s life?
Even when a member of the legislature dies, for which reason a by-election is required, the law is clear that the election management body – being INEC – shall within ninety days of the announcement of such death conduct a by-election to fill the vacant seat. Even though this is not always the case, ninety days given to INEC is exactly three months, not even up to six months.
Presently, there exist seven vacant seats at the National Assembly, both at the senate and the house of representatives. Two of the seven are those who resigned of their own volition, like Sen. Okpebholo of Edo State following his election as governor. Five are related to death. Sadly, in all constituencies where there is need for a by-election, INEC has been citing paucity of funds while seats remain vacant for over one year. The cases of SSenator Ifeanyi bah of Anambra State and Representative Isa Dogonyaro of Jigawa State, both of whom died in 2024, are well known.
This is how constituencies and districts have remained unrepresented in Nigeria after a year and counting; so with Natasha’s suspension, the Senate just widened the number of unrepresented Nigerians as we now have eight vacant legislative seats; meaning that millions of Nigerians are not represented as of yet.
What Nigeria practices, it should be known, is indirect democracy, also known as the representative system of government. Because not all Nigerian adults (over hundred million) can gather in one chamber to speak for themselves, as obtained in Athens the ancient Greek city-state, people are elected to ‘represent’ people; hence the term ‘representative democracy.’
To suspend a lawmaker for six months is to gag an entire constituency or bloc for whom such suspended lawmaker speaks in a representative or parliamentary democracy where governance thrives by legislative debates. At the moment, Natasha’s district, Kogi Central Senatorial District – which comprises five local government councils with some 474,000 registered voters and likely one million people or more – cannot be heard or seen in an Assembly where critical national debates, including ones that affect them, are held. If the senate considers its action appropriate for Natasha’s ‘sins’, then it should have a rethink because the number of registered voters alone in Kogi Central Senatorial District (over 474,000) is larger than the entire population of some independent countries who are represented with a permanent mission and a flag at the UN; let us include countries like Saint Lucia here!
The cases of Hon. Dino Melaye of the House of Representatives and ten others; Hon. Abdulmumin Jibrin; Senators Omo Ovie-Agege and Abdul Ningi; including suspended state lawmakers abound. In all these cases, the court held that suspension of lawmakers for more than the fourteen-day period stipulated in the rules was obnoxious.
Our executive and legislative branches have preempted the laws of the federation in a bid to preserve an alien fiat that I choose to call ‘suspension clause.’ And it remains such a sad coincidence that Rivers State and Kogi Senatorial District were made the proving grounds for the experimentation of such a notion of illegality. How long, we should ask, will it take before this malaise spreads to other parts of the federation?
How come a senate that does not even meet up to the required number of days in a year is sanctioning a six-month suspension for a member?
More concerning to me is the speech by Yemi Adaramodu, senate’s spokesperson. Reacting to Justice Nyako’s judgment ordering the reinstatement of Sen. Natasha Akpoti-Uduaghan against whom ₦5,000,000 in sum was awarded as fine, Adaramodu almost ‘overrode’ the court judgment with his recalcitrant comment insisting that the senate will do as it pleases since the judgment did not say the senate lacked powers to discipline erring members or how long such punishment should last. The provisions of Chapter Eight of the Senate Standing Rules as well as Section 14 of the Legislative Houses, Powers & Privileges Act did not contemplate ‘suspension of six months.’
I expect Natasha to write and cause to be published in at least two national dailies, as mandated by the Justice Nyako court, an official apology to the Senate to settle this matter of suspension while the matter of her allegation continues. As for the Senate, relying on vacua and lacunae to honour only the letters of the law against the spirit of the same law is to undermine the intendment of the law, and this, to me, is pharisaical.
Nnamdi Elekwachi, a public affairs analyst, wrote from Umuahia, Abia State.
