{"id":3225,"date":"2023-04-19T14:01:16","date_gmt":"2023-04-19T14:01:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/?p=3225"},"modified":"2023-04-19T14:01:19","modified_gmt":"2023-04-19T14:01:19","slug":"nass-state-assemblies-get-new-inauguration-rules","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/nass-state-assemblies-get-new-inauguration-rules\/","title":{"rendered":"NASS, State Assemblies Get New Inauguration Rules"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Ahead of the inauguration of the 10th<\/sup> National Assembly, as well as the State Houses of Assembly in June 2023, a new Constitution Alteration Act is set to take effect. In one of the Constitution Alteration bills signed into law by President Muhammadu Buhari in March 2023, significant changes to the inaugural or first sitting of legislative houses in Nigeria have been made. Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, 1999 (Fifth Alteration) (No.8) Act, 2023 alters sections 54, 96 and 311 of the Constitution to stipulate a quorum of at least two-thirds of members-elect for inauguration or first sitting of the Senate, House of Representatives and State Houses of Assembly, respectively and also mandates the use of existing Standing Orders of each legislative house at the inauguration. Until now, there was no distinction between quorum for the inauguration or \u00a0first sitting of a legislative house and subsequent sittings, but this amendment has introduced this distinction. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\nelection of Principal Officers of an Assembly usually takes place at the\ninaugural sitting. In the past, there have been situations where principal\nofficers were elected by a minority using unlawfully amended Standing Orders,\nas well as where only a few members-elect were inaugurated. In June 2015, the Senate\nwas enmeshed in controversy following the election of the President and Deputy\nPresident of the Senate contrary to the wishes of the ruling and majority\nparty, the All Progressives Congress (APC). The Senate President was elected\nunopposed with 57 lawmakers present and voting, while 51 were absent. In 2019, 11 legislators\nin the 31-member Bauchi State House of Assembly elected a Speaker, while the\nrest of the members elected a second Speaker in a separate election. Similarly,\nthe Speaker of the Edo State House of Assembly was elected by 9 out of 24\nmembers in 2019. In both cases, the members were alleged to have been secretly\ninaugurated and convened to carry out the elections.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Another\ncontroversy in the election of the Principal Officers of the 8th<\/sup>\nNational Assembly in 2015 was that the process was facilitated by new\nStanding Orders for the Senate, which was surreptitiously produced by some\npersons and used for the inauguration of the Assembly without approval and\nadoption by members. The amendment to section 311 of the Constitution now\nprovides that the Standing Orders of each house before its dissolution will be\nused for the first sitting of a new Assembly and may be modified within\nreasonable time after the inauguration and first session of the Assembly. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is expected to address the dissension that has arisen in the\nNational Assembly and State Houses of Assembly in the past over inauguration\nand election of their Principal Officers. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

See PLAC\u2019s Factsheet on this Constitution Alteration here: bit.ly\/41hGxhX<\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ahead of the inauguration of the 10th National Assembly, as well as the State Houses of Assembly in June 2023, a new Constitution Alteration Act is set to take effect. In one of the Constitution Alteration bills signed into law by President Muhammadu Buhari in March 2023, significant changes to the inaugural or first sitting […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":698,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3225","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3225","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3225"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3225\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3233,"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3225\/revisions\/3233"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/698"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3225"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3225"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3225"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}