The plenary session that was scheduled to hold on Thursday, May 7, 2015 at the National Assembly was disrupted and had to be rescheduled due to power outages. Nigeria is currently experiencing one of its worst power outages in recent times and sadly, the power cuts are coinciding with a period of fuel scarcity and inability to power generators.
Usually it is the poor who are most affected, but the outages were so annoying that the presiding Deputy Speaker, Emeka Ihedioha, was forced to adjourn the plenary of the House till Tuesday, May 12, 2015. The outage started before the day’s session got underway around noon and was restored briefly as soon as Ihedioha and other principal officers settled down for work, only to go off again almost immediately.
Lawmakers who had motions, bills and other issues to present were left sweating profusely as the air conditioning system of the chambers were affected and soon enough, the discomfort in the hot chamber became unbeatable. In a bid to salvage the situation, Ihedioha tried to continue with the business of the day amid the power interruptions and at a point tried to calm 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” while those from the camp of the All Progressives Congress, mouthed “change will take care of all this.” Even the numerous visitors, some of which were children of the lawmakers left one after another as the heat increased.
