By Nuel Suji
The lack of quorum in the Senate Tuesday halted the plenary proceeding scheduled to override President Goodluck Jonathan’s veto on the fourth amended 1999 constitution bill.
The Supreme Court had last week ruled on a suit filed by the Attorney General and Minister of Justice and Attorney General, seeking to stop the National Assembly from overriding the president’s veto on Fourth Alteration Bill 2015.
The apex court had ruled that status quo be maintained and had adjourned the matter till June 18.
However, the decision did not go down well with the federal lawmakers who argued that Supreme Court cannot stop it from performing its function.
In his remarks shortly before adjourning for today, presiding Deputy Senate President, Ike Ekweremadu announced that the red chamber would meet behind closed doors to chart the next course of action on the Supreme Court’s decision.
According to him, a crucial decision on the efforts to amend the constitution would be taken at that meeting which attendance, he said, would be very mandatory.
“I request all of us to be available tomorrow (today – 13/06/15) to discuss the amendment to the constitution, and be able to respond appropriately to the development.
“Please let those who are not available today (yesterday – 12/05/15) know that we will have closed session tomorrow to discuss this item so that we will be able to fashion out the way forward,” he added.
Investigation by our correspondent revealed that Senate decided to begin the process of overriding the President’s veto by presenting the amendment for reading on the order paper on Tuesday in order to save the constitution review process from being a wasted effort regardless of the Supreme Court order.
