Outages, funding force Reps to abandon proceedings

Unable to withstand the heat in the chambers of the lower house of the National Assembly due to frequent power outages, that affected the air conditioning units, members had to abandon plenary on Thursday

The development forced presiding Deputy Speaker, Mr. Emeka Ihedioha, to adjourn the plenary till Tuesday next week. The lights were restored briefly as soon as Ihedioha and other principal officers settled down for work, but went off again almost immediately. He tried to continue with the business of the day amid the power interruptions.

At a point, the deputy speaker‎ calmed members by explaining that the electrical system had some faults, which were being traced. Lawmakers reacted to his explanation by shouting, “the beauty of transformation.”

Several others, apparently from the APC camp, mouthed “change will take care of all this.”

Reports say the National Assembly has of late been grappling with keeping infrastructure like ‎water, power and elevators running efficiently.

Findings indicated that alleged “funding challenges” and huge expenditure to run heavy generators in the absence of dependable public power, had drained resources in the last six months.

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