Provisions of the Law on Convening Senate Sitting Before September 25
Chapter 5 of the Nigerian constitution extensively discusses the Nigerian National Assembly (Senate and House of Representatives).
Section 53 is clear on the provisions of the law in case of an urgent need to reconvene sitting in the absence of the presiding officers (senate president and deputy senate president).
Section 53 (3) states thus: In the absence of the persons mentioned in the foregoing provisions of this section, such member of the Senate or the House of Representatives or of the joint sitting, as the case may be, as the Senate or the House of Representatives or the joint sitting may elect for that purpose shall preside. Therefore, members of the Senate can elect any of the members to preside, as long as a quorum is formed.
Section 54 states that “either of the two Houses of the National Assembly is competent to sit and conduct proceedings once the quorum of the members is formed, which is one-third of the lawmakers in either of the chambers. The quorum of the Senate or of the House of Representatives shall be one-third of all the members of the Legislative House concerned. One-third of the Senate is 36. Thus, 36 is number of senators needed to convene plenary.
Mace: Mace is just a symbol of authority. There is no section of the constitution that pronounces the Mace as a prerequisite for parliamentary business in Nigeria. Therefore, the proceedings of a legislative house cannot be invalidated because of the absence of a mace.
Summarily, the Senate can reconvene in the absence of the presiding officers, once the quorum is formed. This becomes more imperative as there is an urgent need to sit on debating and passing the supplementary bill on funding the 2019 general election and passing the FCT and ICPC budgets. These are important pending issues that need to be debated before the September 25th earlier scheduled date for resumption.
