Power Outage Disrupts Legislative Activities in Senate

There was a significant power outage at the National Assembly, thereby leading to delays and disruptions of crucial legislative activities.

The outage was caused by the faulty generator powering the Senate wing of the National Assembly, just as the development threw the Red Chamber into a partial blackout as the lawmakers awaited the restoration of power supply.

The Senate plenary could not commence at its scheduled time of 11 a.m. as many senators were seen waiting in the Senate chambers in darkness for more than an hour before plenary eventually kicked off.

It was gathered that the generator of the Senate was also faulty, even as air-conditioners in the offices of about 20 senators are currently not working.

In his remarks, the President of the Senate, Senator Godswill Akpabio, apologised to his colleagues for the power outage and assured them that work is being done to address the situation.

He said, “They are still working on the lights. It went off since morning; it’s even affecting some offices on the fourth floor. We have about nine offices that have not been able to rectify them, but they’re working on it.

“I noticed even members of the press are fanning themselves; at least they feel the heat too. If it gets too hot, then we may have to adjourn for a while, but they are working on it. I apologise for any inconvenience,” Akpabio said at the commencement of plenary.

Also commenting on the situation, Chairman, Senate Services Committee, Senator Sunday Karimi, APC, Kogi West, said, “It is an uncommon incident. Since the 10th Assembly, we’ve not heard of this kind of experience.

“Often, when we are sitting, we use the generator. Unfortunately, our generator developed a fault today.

“It has nothing to do with the fuel issue. So, it is time to switch to the second generator used by the House of Representatives.

“You will also observe that within 10 to 15 minutes of switching, our generator was restored.”