Senators resume to pending work in last lap before 2027 polls

Senators will return to their chamber in Abuja on Tuesday in what may be the last serious sitting period before the 2027 polls, according to findings by the Nigerian Tribune.

The presidential and National Assembly polls come up on January 16, just 96 days away.

The bulk of the days ahead will be devoted to campaigns, leaving the lawmakers with about three to four weeks to attend to legislative duties as they breeze in and out of the National Assembly.

Checks by the newspaper indicate that there are critical pending assignments to be treated during the period, including the further review of the 1999 Constitution and the unresolved probe into the alleged “unaccounted” ₦210 trillion Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL) fund.

More than 70 new bills seeking amendment to the constitution are pending before the legislature, in addition to 55 state creation requests, at least two boundary adjustment proposals, and 278 local government creation demands, the Nigerian Tribune can report, as the space for work tightens for the senators.

Our correspondent recalls that on September 16, in an apparent bid to quicken pace, the National Assembly separated the already passed proposal on state police from the rest of the constitution amendment bills and forwarded it to the 36 State Houses of Assembly for approval.

This was done to address the urgency to tackle crippling security challenges in the country.

However, the bulk of the proposals, including the Special Seats Bill for women, is hanging and unattended as the senators race against time.

Twice between May and July 2026, the Senate did not keep to its plan to pass the bills.

“We are now expecting that before we close for the legislative year, all those bills will be considered and passed between July and early August.

“We are not going to allow any of those amendments to roll over to the 11th Assembly because all the ideas are babies of the 10th Assembly and it is the assembly that will pass them for Nigerians to behold”, the Chairman, Senate Committee on Media and Public Affairs, Senator Yemi Adaramodu, told the Nigerian Tribune back then.

Lately, the senator has promised to explain the delay and speak on how the Senate will dispense with the pending workload, but has yet to do so, having been reached for comments.

Section 9(2) of the constitution specifies the general procedure for amendment, requiring a bill to pass with at least a two-thirds majority of members in both the Senate and the House of Representatives.

This implies that a report on any amendment bill must secure the votes of 240 members (out of 360) of the House of Representatives and at least 72 (out of 109) senators to pass, raising the question of how much time is left to the lawmakers to conclude the pending bills.

Aside from the constitution review, the 2027 budget will remain a major assignment, considering that it will be a budget between one full governance cycle of four years and the commencement of another on May 29, 2027.

As of October 12, the Nigerian Tribune could not establish that the Executive arm of government had transmitted the 2027-2029 Medium Term Expenditure Framework (MTEF), the basis for planning next year’s budget, to the National Assembly.

It was learnt that the absence of the MTEF at the National Assembly, at the latest four months to the end of the current fiscal year, would already be a breach of the Fiscal Responsibility Act, 2007.

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Section 11(1)(b) of the Act provides that the government shall “not later than four months before the commencement of the next financial year, cause to be prepared a Medium-Term Expenditure Framework for the next three financial years” and laid before the two chambers of the National Assembly.

The law also provides that the same document should have been approved by the Federal Executive Council (FEC) by the first half of the current year before getting to the National Assembly four months prior to the expiration of the current financial year.

Investigations on Monday indicated that none of these requirements had been met as of September, the month the MTEF was expected to land at the legislative house.

Meanwhile, the capital components of the 2025 and 2026 budgets are running concurrently ahead of the polls next year.