NASS violation of constitutional sitting threshold

As Nigeria struggles to navigate the convoluted economic outlook with its concomitant extirpative effects on par capita income and the purchasing power of citizens deepening poverty rate across wide statistical spectrum, the National Assembly remains largely insular and insensitive to the austere necessity of the prevailing trajectory. Whereas section 63 of the constitution provides that […]

As Nigeria struggles to navigate the convoluted economic outlook with its concomitant extirpative effects on par capita income and the purchasing power of citizens deepening poverty rate across wide statistical spectrum, the National Assembly remains largely insular and insensitive to the austere necessity of the prevailing trajectory.
Whereas section 63 of the constitution provides that the Senate and House of Representatives shall each sit for not less than 181 days in a year, section 68 further states that any legislator who fails to attend the proceedings of the senate for less than one third of the required number of days shall automatically lose his or her seat.
It is alleged that whilst the House or Representatives sat for only 104 days, the Senate sat for 96 days, nearly fulfilling 50% of minimum requirement.
It is assumed that the two chambers are fully remunerated for jobs undone. It becomes more provocative reconciling the undeserving jumbo emoluments of federal lawmakers with the alleged budget padding rocking the lower chamber.
It seems whilst the senate is exploiting all legal skullduggery to neuter the resultant comeuppance of catalogue of alleged malfeasance levelled against its leadership, the house is trailing the ignoble record with jet speed.
As it is the Accountant General of the Federation is empowered by the constitution to compel the legislators to refund the money collected for the number of days they failed to sit in the National Assembly.
Buhari alone cannot achieve the change Nigerians are clamoring for without enlisting the National Assembly and the Judiciary to forge a common ideology of puritanical governance.

Bukola Ajisola, Lagos, [email protected]