There was reportedly a disagreement between senate president Godswill Akpabio and his immediate predecessor, Ahmed Lawani over the sitting time of the senate on Thursday.
The senate had requested to amend its order paper to henceforth hold plenary from 11am to 3pm after the Senate Leader, Opeyemi Bamidele, raised two motions at the commencement of plenary sessions.
One of them was an amendment to the standing rules of which the Senate should shift its sitting timings on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays from 10am to 11am, and close by 3pm like their counterpart in the House of Representatives.
The Senate Leader also moved a second motion on Standing Committee’s Amendment of order 96 to create the Senate Committee on Reparation and repatriation.
However, the second motion was stepped down as senators debated the issue of sitting time.
In response to the first motion, Senate President, Senator Godswill Akpabio indicated that the most urgent motion was to align the time of resumption with what obtains in the House of Representatives.
However, the immediate past President of the Senate, Ahmad Lawan while making his contribution, disagreed with Akpabio.
Lawan said: “I don’t know the basis at the moment for which we want to shift our sitting from 10 to 11 and end at 3pm, for me, we have more energy, our eyes are clearer in the morning and one hour into the day, probably we would have lost some energy.
“If we work between 10am and 2pm, if we sit in the plenary between 10am and 2pm, our committees would do better. If we don’t have any reason except we have to synchronise with the House, I think we need to look at it again.
“However, if we have other reasons that we must change, that is fine. If it is just to synchronise with the House, they may have their reasons for sitting at 11 and closing by 3pm, but here I don’t see the reasons.”
Responding, Akpabio opposed Lawan that the idea of the Senate sitting by 11am started during his time as the President of the 9th Senate especially during the period of the COVID-19.
But Lawan reacted by saying it was because of the COVID-19 that the time was altered from 10am to 11am adding that they had also cut down on the number of days for plenary.
Akpabio then reacted: “Our rules said 10am, but we came to meet the tradition of 11am, the only thing that we changed was to add an additional day because during that COVID-19 period we were sitting twice a week.
“I said no, since there is no more COVID we should sit three times in a week and we maintained what we saw, 11am but now we are saying that we have not been able to justify the 11am sitting unless it reflects same on our rules.
“The idea of 3pm in my view is not correct because it does not mean you must sit till 3pm, it simply means if we don’t have much to do, we can close at 1pm or 2pm to enable our colleagues to go for committee sittings and other matters related to the proceedings of the Senate such as clearances and all that.
“The only aspect of it is to legalise it so that people didn’t have the impression that you are sitting at 11am while the rule says 10am.”
According to the Senate rules, the official commencement time for the Senate plenary is 10 am, however, it has reportedly become common practice for sessions to start much later in the 10th Senate, often around 11 am or even later, due to the lateness of the lawmakers. The decision to change the sitting time to 11am should be one the lawmakers are ready to stick to, and not misuse.
