The Senate on Tuesday, March 5, delayed its plenary sitting for about 30 minutes following prolonged power outage in the chambers.
According to reports, the outage was caused by the faulty generator powering the Senate wing of the National Assembly.
The development threw the Red Chamber into partial blackout as Senators waited for the restoration of power supply.
President of the Senate, Godswill Akpabio commenced plenary after power was restored some minutes later.
Akpabio on commencement of plenary apologised for the power outage and the heat in the Chamber.
He revealed that about nine offices occupied by Senators were still experiencing outage as work was ongoing to rectify the situation.
Akpabio said: “They are still working on the light. It went off since morning, it is even affecting some of the offices on the fourth floor, we have about nine offices that they have not been able to rectify but they are working on it.
“They have assured us that before 1 O’clock the light will be okay. However, I have noticed even the press (journalists) some of them are fanning themselves at least they feel the heat also.
“If it gets too hot then we may have to adjourn for a while to allow them to conclude but they are working on it. I apologise for any inconvenience.”
The Chairman, Committee on Senate Services, Senator Sunday Karimi (APC – Kogi West), also told journalists that the situation was caused by a faulty generator.
Karimi said: “It is an uncommon incident. Since the 10th Assembly, we’ve not had this kind of experience.
“Often when were sitting, we use the generator. Unfortunately today, our generator developed a fault.
“It has nothing to do with the fuel issue. So, they had to switch to the second generator used by the House of Representatives.
“You will also observe that within 10 to 15 minutes of switching to the House’s generator, our generator was restored.”
