The House of Representatives has denied that the Senate and the House Reps plan to reconvene at a joint session to consider the report of the 2019 elections budget and other financial proposals by President Muhammadu Buhari.
There were reports, however, that the purpose of the alleged joint session was to prevent any plot to impeach Senate President, Bukola Saraki, and his Deputy, Ike Ekweremadu, from succeeding.
But, the Chairman of House Committee on Media and Public Affairs, Abdulrazak Namdas described the claims as “pure imagination” because a joint session as envisaged could not be sustained by any standing rules of the National Assembly.
He said there were no precedents or rules to make a joint session under the circumstances possible.
Namdas noted that what NASS rules covered was for each chamber to sit separately and consider a report.
Namdas told Punch, “Joint session of the House of Reps and Senate is pure imagination and honestly, we don’t know where this one is coming from. This has never happened before; that the Senate and the House will reconvene and sit together, instead of doing so in their separate chambers.
“We are not aware of this and it’s not a possibility. Recall that even when the two chambers hold a joint session to receive the annual budget presentation by Mr President, it is for the purpose of taking the address only.
“The two chambers revert to their separate ways to work on the budget and consider the report separately. It is only when there are differences between what one chamber has passed and the other one that we set up a conference committee for harmonisation.
“If it was possible to be done in a joint session, what is the need of the conference committee, which is a provision of our rules? There is no rule on joint session in the circumstances envisaged, and therefore, there will be none.”
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