Senate Plenary was delayed for close to an hour on Tuesday March 5, 2024 due to power outage.
The outage was caused by the faulty generator powering the Senate wing of the National Assembly.
The development threw the Red Chamber into partial blackout as the lawmakers awaited the restoration of power supply.
However after restoration of power at about 12:00 noon for plenary which supposed to have commenced at 11:00am, the President of the Senate, Godswill Akpabio, commenced it by apologising for the outage and the heat in the Chamber.
He lamented that at the time commencement of plenary, about nine offices at the Senate wing , were still affected by power outage just as air-conditioners in the office of about 20 senators were not working at the time .
He said, “They are still working on the the light, It went off since morning, it is even affecting some of the offices on the fourth floor, we have about nine offices that they have not been able to rectify but they are working on it.
“They have assured us that before 1:00pm , the light will be okay. However, I have noticed even the press (journalists) some of them are fanning themselves at least they feel the heat also.
“If it gets too hot then we may have to adjourn for a while to allow them to conclude but they are working on it. I apologise for any inconvenience.”
The Chairman, Committee on Senate Services, Senator Sunday Karimi, also told journalists that the situation was caused by faulty generator.
Karimi said, “It is an uncommon incident. Since the 10th Assembly, we’ve not heard this kind of experience.
“Often when were sitting, we use the generator. Unfortunately today, our generator developed a fault.
“It has nothing to do with the fuel issue. We switched to the second generator used by the House of Representatives as temporary reprieve.
“You will also observed that within 10 to 15 minutes of switching, our generator was restored.”
