The Nigerian Senate last Thursday suspended Senator Natasha Akpoti-Uduaghan (Kogi Central) for six months for what it called her total violation of the Senate Standing Rules which allegedly brought the presiding officer and the entire Nigerian Senate to public opprobrium.

The suspension was announced by Senate President Godswill Akpabio following the approval of the recommendation of the Ethics and Privileges Committee to penalize Natasha for the said infraction. Public responses to the development have been varied. Whereas the majority of senators supported the suspension, some analysts believe the approach of the senate did not project its members as true democrats.

The senate relied heavily on the Legislative Houses (Powers and Privileges) Act of 2018 which among other things regulates the conduct of members and other persons connected with the proceedings of the Legislative House. Of particular importance is Section 21(2) of the Act which provides that ‘where any member is guilty of contempt of a Legislative House, the House, may by resolution, reprimand such member or suspend him from the service of the House for such period as it may determine.’Although this law may on its face valuelook harmless to the House, there is doubt if the attempt by our legislators to cover themselves with a cloak of tyranny can stand the test of time.  

A body such as the senate which does not have the power to make a senator, cannot give itself the power to unmake any senator. There are only two authorities that our constitution empowers to remove a legislator from office. These are: an election tribunal and the people that elected the legislator to represent them in the legislature. If an authority has no legal powers to remove a person from office, such an authority cannot validly exercise the illegal power by making the removal a short-term matter. Removal by one day in the name of suspension is a removal, it is irrelevant that the length of time of the removal is long or short; because as the saying goes, no person, group or authority can give what it does not have. 

The senate or any group or organization is no doubt entitled to making its own rules for the smooth running of the body. It is therefore in order for the senate to make rules to penalize its members for any infraction, but such punishment must be within its powers. If the senate is satisfied that Senator Natasha Uduaghan breached any of its rules, it can remove her from a chairmanship position of a committee or any other privileges hitherto bestowed on her by the senate. It can however not extend the punishment beyond its own power. This point has been repeatedly made and one wonders why our Legislative Houses have continued with the illegality of purporting to have the power to suspend one of its own.

If they really don’t know, the courts have since severally said so. First, Femi Okurounmu, (Ogun Central) was suspended in 1999. This was followed by Joseph Waku, a senator from Benue State who was suspended in 2000. Senator Arthur Nzeribe from Imo state was suspended in 2002. Senator Ali Ndume, a former Senate leader was suspended in 2017. Next was Senator Ovie Omo Agege form Delta state who was suspended in 2018. There was also the recent case of Senator Abdul Ningi from Bauchi state who was suspended in 2024. Interestingly, the Judiciary quashed all the suspensions declaring them as illegal and unconstitutional. The case of Senator Omo Agege probably stood out because of the initial insistence of the court that the other party – the senate must also be heard. At the end it was also quashed.

The House of Representatives has also had its own string of illegal suspensions that have similarly been quashed by the Judiciary. One would have thought that the National Assembly should have by now realized that it has no powers to suspend its legislators. But that has not been so. Instead, there have been reports of how some State Houses of Assembly have also followed the same line as their federal colleagues. Luckily for our democracy, it was one of the suspensions from one state that gave the judiciary the room to throw ample light on the subject of Legislative Housesand their powers to suspend their members. The celebrated case involved one Rifkatu Samson Dannaswho was suspended in 2012 by the Bauchi State House of Assembly.

The offence of Dannas, the then only female and Christian member of the House was her objection to the proposed relocation of Tafawa Balewa Local Government headquarters from Tafawa Balewa to Bununu- a location heavily populated by Muslims.  She was suspended without listening to the voice of reason that the headquarters of local governments listed in the constitution cannot be changed without constitutional amendment. She went to court to challenge her suspension which the court declared as illegal and unconstitutional.The House appealed but the Court of Appeal also ruled in Danna’s favour just as the Supreme Court declined to order a stay of execution of the Appeal Court judgment that reinstated Danna. Aptly put therefore, the state of the law in Nigeria today is that it is illegal for a legislative House to suspend any member.

Beyond the law, it is also a notorious fact that a legislator is not an employee of a Legislative Chamber. Leaders of the latter need to therefore appreciate that they cannot hire and fire their members. It is true that section 21(2) of the Legislative Houses (Powers and Privileges) Act of 2018 earlier referred to empowers anyLegislative House to penalize members who breach any rules of the House. It is equally true that the Act was signed into law in 2018 making it appear to be a valid law but any aspect of the law which is at variance with the constitution is without doubt illegal. Thus, Legislative Houses ought to listen to the persuasive argument that it is unfair to penalize a constituency in the guise of sanctioning an offending legislator.

Section 39(1) of the Nigerian constitution grants every person freedom of expression, including the freedom to hold opinions and to receive and impart ideas and information without interference. To underscore the importance of this freedom, Section 39(2) explicitly empowers citizens to “own, establish and operate any medium for the dissemination of information, ideas and opinions.” For as long as any such opinion is not defamatory, no one including a legislator can be deprived of his freedom of expression. Accordingly, the senate cannot penalize Uduaghan for expressing an opinion.At the same time, internal rules of the senate cannot take precedence over the nation’s constitution.

Again, the posture that the legislature cannot be stopped from doing its job appears misconstrued because legislative functions are in the words of our constitution subject to judicial review.  Perhaps it is important to restate the relevant provision of Section 4(8) of our constitution which states clearly that, “the exercise of legislative powers by the National Assembly or by a House of Assembly shall be subject to the jurisdiction of courts of law and of judicial tribunals established by law, and accordingly, the National Assembly or a House of Assembly shall not enact any law, that ousts or purports to oust the jurisdiction of a court of law or of a judicial tribunal established by law.”

For this reason, the courts have continued to insist that “access to court is a fundamental right in the Constitution, which cannot be taken away by force or intimidation from any organ.” We know Uduaghan is already in court and that the details of the case are still sketchy. But,whether or not the senate has correctly handled the subject would become clearer shortly. To start with, it is unimaginable as one lawyer suggested the other day that although Order 67(4) of its own rules limits the suspension of a member of the upper chamber to a maximum of 14 days, the senate went ahead to violate such rules by suspending Uduaghan not for 14 days but for 6 months. 

From the points we have made in this article, we insist that the senate has no powers to suspend any member adding that the suspension of Senator Natasha Akpoti-Uduaghan representing Kogi Central, for even 30minutes has no legal backing.In addition, we urge our legislators to refrain from the tendency to now and again give themselves powers that are at variance with our constitution. The current National Assembly in particular should seek to set a record of an institution which does not function outside the rule of law by serving as democrats who never seek to act in excess of the powers given to them.