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Senator Faults Maikasuwa Over NASS Elections

A member of the Unity Forum, Senator Kabiru Marafa, has accused the clerk of the National Assembly (CNA) of fraud for his actions during the June 9 Senate elections that produced Senator Bukola Saraki as president of the 8th Senate.

According to him, the CNA amended the Senate Standing Order without the knowledge of the senators, thereby changing the Standing Rule of the Senate – that for any presiding officer to emerge, he must score two-thirds votes of the number of the senators, and not one-third as the CNA stated before the said election.

Marafa, who spoke in Abuja yesterday, alleged that the amended Senate Standing Order used in the June 9 inauguration of presiding officers was not known to him and that he was not aware of any amendment of the Standing Rule by the 7th Senate, and whoever must have amended the rules without the knowledge of the senators must be prosecuted.

He said, “Senate Amended Rule 2015 is a fraud; the person who did it has to be brought to book. We are not fighting Saraki; we are not against Saraki; what we are asking is, who changed the process? Who changed our Standing Rule? The public was misinformed that there was quorum. According to our rule, the quorum for electing the presiding officers is two-thirds.”

Senator Marafa said that some of the questions that the CNA should answer include: “What is the quorum for electing presiding officers? Who changed our rules and why did he change them?

“Our rule provides for division; why did he amend our rules and why was he in a hurry? Why couldn’t he wait for the senators to form a quorum before he started the election of the presiding officers? For the election of the presiding officers to be valid, two-thirds must be present.”

The senator recalled that during the induction of the 8th Senate held at the International Conference Centre (ICC), Abuja, the then deputy Senate president, Senator Ike Ekweremadu, who was re-elected, in a paper he delivered, stated that to elect the Senate president and the deputy Senate president, each of them must get 55 votes of the members.

He argued that for the deputy Senate president to have been elected with 54 votes meant that he was not validly elected.

“I expect Ekweremadu to step aside. As an accomplished lawyer, a parliamentarian and deputy Senate president for eight years, he knows our Standing Rule, he knows the law,” Mararfa stated, adding his position was not about Senator Saraki or Senator Ekweremadu; rather, it was about the rule of law.

“Saraki has been my leader, I have no quarrel with him. I will be happy for him (as president of Senate), but what we are asking is, what happened on the 9th of June – was it constitutional or not?” he asked.


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