Senate passes confidence vote on Akpabio, refers Natasha’s case to ethics C’ttee

BY PATRICK WEMAMBU

The Senate on Tuesday passed a vote of confidence on the leadership of the Senate President, Senator Godswill Akpabio, saying the Senate remains resolute in protecting the institution of the Senate of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.

Coming on the heels of the Senate resolution referring to the controversial breach of Senate Standing Rules by Senator Natasha Akpoti-Uduaghan on Thursday last week, the case has been sent to the Senate Committee On Ethics, Code of Conduct and Public Petitions for hearing.

Akpabio reminisced; “I was a member of the 8th Senate, today I’m a member of the 10th Senate, I believe strongly that it’s only God that knows who will be a member of the 11th Senate, 12th Senate but the institution remains. As I’m talking now, Senator Fatai Buhari knows that the rule does not allows a senator to sit anywhere, but if you need to make contribution, you must go back to your seats and this is part of maintenance of order by the presiding officer.”

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According to the Senate President, the first time the issue of breach of Senate Rules came up “our distinguished sister (Senator Natasha) was not even speaking from her seat and that was when we tried to call her to order. I think part of the problem is when people come from court; court-declared senators, they miss the orientation.”

Consequently, the Senate President ordered the management of the National Assembly to organize periodic orientation for senators that do not start when their calling started.

“Because I remember that this particular senator, on the day she was sworn in, raised her hand to speak. I was scared, but I had to recognize her because I was saying, we just gave her the rule book as part of what we give to you when you are sworn in.

“So I said, has she even opened the rule book to know what to say before? She made a complete deviation, I think two days later, she got a motion. There is nothing wrong with being vibrant, but there is a lot wrong when you don’t know anything about the procedure,” the presiding officer recalled.

Continued he; “You can’t be a referential advocate and go and start a church service with communion. You must lay foundation. So let me refer you to Section 66 of our rule book. Section 66, subsection 1 says, the president of the Senate, or the chairman, may be as chairman of committee of the whole, after having called the attention of the committee to the conduct of a senator who persists in irrelevance or tedious repetition, either of his own arguments. Subsection 66, subsection 1 says that the Senate President, may direct him to discontinue his speech. So even while you are talking, you need to have this.”

Emphasizing that even in the case of sitting as chairman of the Committee of the Whole, the Senate President can order such a senator whose conduct is grossly disorderly to withdraw immediately from the Senate during the remainder of that day’s sitting, Akpabio warned that any erring Senator can be ordered to withdraw in the event that his/her conduct is viewed as disorderly for the remainder of that day’s sitting. This is in addition to directing the sergeant-at-arms to act on such orders whuch may be received from the chair.

Referring the red chamber to important sections of their rules, the Senate President drew attention to Sections 65 and 55.

He expatiated; “I don’t want to go down… We’ll go through that section 65 and see all that. Yeah, exactly. But look at 55 (which deals with) behavior of senators in the senate. This one is a general thing we must read. This when given to us it’s like a bible in the church or a quran in the mosque…

“During a sitting, that is Section 55.2, all Senators shall enter or leave the Senate with decorum. It means that the sanctity of the Senate must be maintained and please go through it. You’ll see what is expected of a Senator. You can’t even cross the floor during sittings. You can’t chew chewing gum during sittings. We cannot even drink water in the chamber during sitting.”

Warning that house rules give power to the Senate president to even suspend a senator for at least 14 legislative days without reference to any committee, Akpabio noted that it means if Senate is sitting three times in a week, that comes to about five weeks without reference to any committee.

He went back to Natasha’s case; “On that day you will notice that after we pleaded with her to speak from her seat and she refused, I think our colleagues rushed to her and attempted to mute her microphone. I did not mute the microphone because as at that day we didn’t have the capacity for the senate president to mute the microphone from here because of the new installation we have here.”

Despite some of her colleagues going over to plead with her not to talk, members were reminded the efforts yielded no fruits. But later on, the Kogi-born law-maker had her way with the unmuting of her microphone so that she could ventilate her grievances.

Senator Akpabio concluded; “I wanted to hear why she will not move but I tried listening to one Senator I found that why she did not obey the senate standing order was because she wanted to position herself where the camera can see her.”