A legal practitioner
has explained how the senators of the APC can remove Saraki without having the
constitutionally backed two-third majority.
By this, I mean the President of the
Senate, the Speaker of the House of Representatives, the Deputy President of
the Senate and the Deputy Speaker of the House of Representatives.
While some lawyers hold the view
that the removal of any of the above mentioned officers required 2/3 majority
of the all the members of each house, others are of the view that what is
required is 2/3 of the members present at a sitting provided they form a
quorum. Each of the two opposing views are basing their argument on the
provision of the Section 50 (2) (C) of the Constitution of the Federal Republic
of Nigeria 1999 (as altered) (1999 Constitution). It is apposite to quote the
said provision before going further. The section provides;
2 The President or Deputy President
of the Senate or the Speaker or Deputy Speaker of the House of Representatives
shall vacate his office if he is removed from office by a resolution of the
Senate or of the House of Representatives, as the case may be, by the votes of
not less than two-thirds majority of the members of that House.
The contention of both sides is with
respect to the meaning of the phrase ‘…not less than two-thirds majority of the
members of that House…’ In other words, what does the framers of the
constitution mean by “two-third majority of the members of that House”? Does it
mean for instance to remove the President of the Senate, it requires a
resolution passed by at least 73 Senators which is 2/3 of the 109 Senators of
the Federal Republic of Nigeria? Or it means 25 Senators which the 2/3 of the
37 Senators that the Senate requires to perform its legislative duties as
provided under Section 54 (1) of the 1999 Constitution.
It is my humble opinion that for us
to unravel the meaning of the phrase not less than two-thirds majority of the
members of that House…’ used in subsection (2) (c) of the Section 50 of the
1999 Constitution, the constitution must be looked at holistically. In other words,
the provision shall not be read in isolation of other provisions of the
constitution. It is important to consider other provisions of the Constitution
in order to determine the meaning and effect of the words being interpreted.
In this regard, the provisions of
sections 54, 143, and 188 are of relevance vis-à-vis interpretation of section
50 (2) (c) of the 1999 Constitution. This is because the sections contain
provisions that deal with required number of legislators needed at different
times with respect to particular legislative business.
Section 54 of the constitution deals
with the quorum required to conduct legislative business by each house of the
National Assembly. Sub section (1) of the section provides;
54. (1) The quorum of the Senate or
of the House of Representatives shall be one third of all the members of the
Legislative House concerned.
Section 143 makes provision with
respect to the removal of President or Vice President from office and of
particular relevance here are subsections (1), (2), (4) and (9) thereof which
provides;
143. (1) The President or
Vice-President may be removed from office in accordance with the provisions of
this section.
(2) Whenever a notice of any
allegation in writing signed by not less than one-third of the members of the
National Assembly-
(3) A motion of the National
Assembly that the allegation be investigated shall not be declared as having
been passed, unless it is supported by the votes of not less than two-thirds
majority of all the members of each House of the National Assembly.
(4) Where the report of the Panel is
that the allegation against the holder of the office has been proved, then
within fourteen days of the receipt of the report at the House the National
Assembly shall consider the report, and if by a resolution of each House of the
National Assembly supported by not less than two-thirds majority of all its
members, the report of the Panel is adopted, then the holder of the office
shall stand removed from office as from the date of the adoption of the report.
I have taken the pain to quote the
above provisions in order to make it as easy for non-lawyers to understand my
argument. The provisions above, like section 50 (2) of the same constitution
make provision with respect to the number of legislators required at a
particular time for particular legislative business. Sections 54 (1), 143 (4)
& (9) and 188 (4) & (9) have a common denominator that qualifies the
number of legislators required for a particular business of to be carried out.
The denominator is the phrase ‘all the members’.
On the other hand, reading section
50 (2) (c), 143 (2) and 188 (2) one will observe the absence of the phrase ‘all
the members’ in qualifying the number of legislators required for the legislative
business being dealt with by the said provisions.
From the provisions of the above
sections of the 1999 Constitution, one can easily deduct that by the combined
provision of Section 50 (2) (c) and section 54 (1) & (4) of the 1999
Constitution, what is required for any motion intended to remove President of
the Senate or his deputy is two-third of the members present at any sitting of
the Senate provided there are up to 37 senators when such motion is tabled.
It amount to standing logic on its head
to posit that a Constitution that empowers 37 Senators to exercise the
legislative powers of the National Assembly provided by sections 58 and 59,
will turn around and make the less important duty of dispensing with who is
leading the Senators to perform the legislative duty more daunting. It cannot
be the intendment of the framers of the same constitution to make it possible
for 19 senators to make a President of the Senate to turn around to require 73
senators to unmake him. If 19 can make a President of the Senate, it is only
logical to posit that 24 can unmake the same President of the Senate.
If the intendment of the framers of
the Constitution is to require 73 Senators to remove President of the senate,
certainly the word ‘all’ could have been inserted in between the words ‘of’ and
‘the’ in phrase ‘…not less than two-thirds majority of the members of that
House…’ of section 50 (2) (c) of the 1999 Constitution.
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