Power Outage Delays Senate Plenary for 30 Minutes as Generator Packs Up

Plenary at the Senate was on Tuesday reportedly delayed for about 30 minutes following power outage.

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 the lawmakers awaited the restoration of power supply.

President of the Senate, Godswill Akpabio, commenced plenary after power was restored some minutes later.

Akpabio apologized for the outage and the heat in the Chamber, disclosing that about nine offices still experienced power outage as work was ongoing to rectify the situation.

Investigation revealed that air-conditioners in the office of about 20 senators are currently not working.

Akpabio said, “They are still working on the light. It went off in the 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 apologize for any inconvenience.”

The Chairman, Committee on Senate Services, Senator Sunday Karimi, also told journalists after the plenary that the situation was caused by faulty generators.

“It is an uncommon incident. Since the 10th Assembly, we’ve not heard of this kind of experience. Often when we’re sitting, we use the generator. Unfortunately, today, our generator developed a fault.

“It has nothing to do with the fuel issue. So, they have to switch to the second generator used by the House of Representatives. You will also observe that within 10 to 15 minutes of switching, our generator was restored.”

Sunday Aborisade