Chief Alphonsus Igbeke who obtained a court judgment penultimate Thursday to remove Senator Joy Emodi from the Senate may have perfected a way upstaging legislators from his native Anambra State in the courts

Why Senator Joy Emodi was dubbed the Joy of the Senate by the President of the Senate, Senator David Mark has never been revealed. But the woman who was removed from the Senate last Thursday by the Court of Appeal was an accomplished legislator who left a memorable legacy in her legislative and personal conducts that inspired joy in the gloomiest days of the Senate.

By Emma Aziken

Pity the lot of Chief Tony Anenih last Wednesday as the local politics of attrition between him and Governor Adams Oshiomhole took centre stage in the Senate chambers on that day.

It was a contest that the most zealot of the famous leader’s followers would not have bargained for. As the battle [...]

Senator David Mark’s remarkable voyage as a democrat was perhaps underlined last Thursday as he firmly took position against coup plotters.

Senator Grace Folashade Bent, the Yoruba born female Senator representing Adamawa South senatorial district can never go unnoticed wherever she is. If not her fashionable style then her outspokenness would give away the trendy and trenchant Senator in any gathering.

It was a constitutional milestone that ordinarily should have been accorded worthy headlines in the dailies. However, the passage of the first amendments to the 1999 Constitution was buried in the aftermath of the commotion that followed the alleged return of President Umaru Yar‘Adua to the country last Wednesday.

It is remarkable that as the Senate basks in accolades of commendation over its seeming positive role in stabilizing the polity that mention is today being made of its equally very efficient “mortuary”. That is the Senate Committee on Ethics, Privileges and Public Petitions.

Last Tuesday’s resolution which captured President Umaru Yar‘Adua’s BBC interview as a transmission to the National Assembly of his medical incapacitation may have stretched the limits of reasoning. But it undoubtedly was a definite solution to the constitutional logjam that befell the country.

The Senate has in recent years expressed its intellectual prowess through the oratorical expertise of its spokespersons.
The concept of Senate spokesperson was conceived by the Anyim Senate which appointed Senator Jonathan Zwingina as its official spokesman.

It was the first time President Shagari would be known to have publicly visited the National Assembly in Abuja.
The letter handed over to Senator Mark echoed the resolution adopted by the Senate the day before urging President Yar‘Adua to comply with constitutional provisions requiring him to handover to his deputy while on holiday or medical vacation.

The collaboration between Senate Presidents and their deputies in the fourth republic has until the Mark – Ekweremadu dispensation been a cat and mouse affair.

It is just like yesterday. But it was twenty seven years ago that Gen. Muhammadu Buhari as head of the then ruling military junta proclaimed democracy unrealistic in the immediate future in Nigeria.

The Evan Enwerem Senate is remembered for being a rubber stamp of the executive. The Chuba Okadigbo Senate is hailed for among others, its sound articulation of legislative procedures, flamboyant ventilation of parliamentary cadence, but also, for the contract scandal that eclipsed it.

Senator David Mark should today have been receiving the esteemed title of Olorogun of The Source from His Majesty, Oba Sijuwade, the Ooni of Ife.