Outages ‎Force Reps to Shut Down Proceedings

Proceedings at the House of Representatives were disrupted on Thursday due to ‎frequent outages.

The development forced presiding Deputy Speaker, Mr. Emeka Ihedioha, to adjourn the plenary of the House till Tuesday next week.

The outage affected the air conditioning system of the chambers, leaving lawmakers sweating profusely each time it occurred. 

Members, who had motions, bills and other issues to present, also found it difficult to work as the discomfort in the hot chamber became unbeatable. 

Our correspondent observed that the problem started before Thursday’s session got underway around 12noon.

The lights were restored briefly as soon as Ihedioha and other principal officers settled down for work, but went off again almost immediately.

He tried to continue with the business of the day amid the power interruptions.

At a point, the deputy speaker‎ calmed members by explaining that the electrical system had some faults, which were being traced.

Lawmakers reacted to his explanation by shouting, “the beauty of transformation.”

Several others, apparently from the camp of the All Progressives Congress, mouthed “change will take care of all this.”

The public gallery was full at the time of opening the House on Thursday, but with the heat growing stronger in the enclosed chamber, the visitors left one after another.

Children, who came from the American International School, Abuja, to observe the proceedings of the day, also hurriedly left the place due to the unbreakable heat.

Ironically, some of the visiting children were children of some of the lawmakers. 

Some of them stood up to identify themselves as parents when the children were announced to be among the visitors of the day.

The National Assembly has of late been grappling with keeping infrastructure like ‎water, power and elevators running efficiently. 

Findings indicated that alleged “funding challenges” and huge expenditure to run heavy generators in the absence of dependable public power, had drained resources in the last six months. 

The National Assembly, its bureaucracy and the National Assembly Service Commission had a budget of N150bn in 2014 to run services, pay salaries, running costs and allowances of senators and members of the House.