N’Assembly May Adjourn Sitting Today

The two chambers of the National Assembly may adjourn sitting as soon as it reconvenes today in honour of the late member of the House, Hon. Ja’afaru Ilyasu representing Magamu/ Rijau federal constituency in Niger State. Ilyasu, a member of the House Committee on Appropriation, died in his sleep yesterday morning at his Maitama, Abuja residence.

As is the tradition of both the Senate and House of Representatives, whenever any lawmaker dies, the plenary would have to be adjourned till the next day as a mark of respect for the deceased legislator.

For today’s plenary, once the presiding officers of the two chambers say the opening prayers and read the executive communications, if any, from the president, the leaders of the two Houses will formally move for the adjournment of the plenary till tomorrow in deference to Ilyasu, who died yesterday morning.

This development may affect the 2020 budget report which is expected to be laid before the

Senate plenary today by the Chairman of Senate Committee on Appropriation, Senator Barau Jibrin.

Jibrin had last week sought the permission of the upper chamber for a week grace for his committee to present the budget report today.

The committee chairman had last Tuesday, while explaining why the report was not ready for presentation at plenary, told his colleagues that although the committee had received and collated all the reports from the sub-committees, “but the whole report will not be ready for presentation until weekend, and I plead with the Senate to give us till next Tuesday to lay the report at plenary.”

That means the budget report will now be presented to Senate at plenary tomorrow by Senator Jibrin after which the Senate will consider it before passage.

The Senate President, Dr. Ahmad Lawan, had also last week hinted that the N10.33 trillion 2020 budget proposal presented to the National Assembly by President Muhammadu Buhari on October 8 may be passed by the two chambers tomorrow.