Sufuyan Ojeifo
14 May 2008
Abuja — Chairman of the Senate Committee on Media and Information, Senator Ayogu Eze, has explained the constitutional procedure by which the seat of Chairman of Senate Committee on Health, Senator Iyabo Obasanjo-Bello, can be declared vacant by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).
Speaking with Senate correspondents after plenary yesterday, Eze said the Senate President would be required to write to INEC if it was discovered that Obasanjo-Bello's absence from Senate plenary had made it impossible for her to satisfy the constitutional requirement regarding attendance in a legislative session.
He spoke just as the whereabouts of the daughter of former President Olusegun Obasanjo remain unknown.
He said the Senate could no longer act on the N300 million Ministry of Health scam as the matter had already been charged to court.
The Senate Health Committee, under the chairmanship of Obasanjo-Bello, had collected N10 million from the Ministry of Health for a capacity-building seminar in Ghana from March 16 to 20, 2008.
Eze said the Senate would not rush to conclusion that she had breached the constitutional requirement unless steps were taken to determine that there was a breach.
In respect of sitting, Section 63 of the 1999 Constitution states that: "The Senate and the House of Representatives shall each sit for a period of not less than one hundred and eighty-one days in a year."
With regards to attendance by members, Section 68 (1) (f) provides that: "A member of the Senate or of the House of Representatives shall vacate his seat in the House of which he is a member if without just cause he is absent from meetings of the House of which he is a member for a period amounting in the aggregate to more than one-third of the total number of days during which the House meets in any one year."
This implies that Obasanjo-Bello must have been absent from Senate session for 61 sitting days before the provision can be used against her.
She attended plenary last on Tuesday, April 15, this year, and she would have to stay away from the Senate Chamber till September 16 or thereabout to run foul of the constitutional provision, if the current session extends to that time.
But the Senate calendar is running in her favour. The current session will end on June 5, this year and she is already deemed to have satisfied the attendance requirement for this session.
Eze said: "I need to say that attendance at sittings of the Senate is voluntary. Every chamber of the National Assembly is expected to do a minimum of 181 sittings in a year.
"What happens when a senator is absent for considerable number of times is that an interested party or member of the constituency of the senator concerned notifies the National Assembly leadership or the Senate that so, so, and so person has been absent from the Senate for so, so and so period and I think that constitutionally his or her membership of the National Assembly has lapsed."
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Why is the senate commitee trying to defend this lady when they know quite well that what she did was wrong. This might suffix the world to think about the kind of people running the government of the country The idea of "US,US" SHOULD BE STRICKEN OUT OF THE SENATE IF THEY ARE TO ACT AS THE LEGISLATIVE BODY THEY ARE SUPPOSED TO BE.They cant be getting themselves into matters that should be solely dealt with by the judicial community, except they control the judicial community. Have they asked themselves why Mrs Obasanjo - Bello is in hiding? If she… [Read Full Text]