THE NATIONAL ASSEMBLY

The Powers and functions of the National Assembly are set out in sections 4 and 5 of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria 1999 as follows:

4. (1) The legislative powers of the Federal Republic of Nigeria shall be vested in a National Assembly for the Federation, which shall consist of a Senate and a House of Representatives.

(2) The National Assembly shall have power to make laws for the peace, order and good government of the federation or any part thereof with respect to any matter included in the Exclusive Legislative List set out in Part I of the Second Schedule to this Constitution.

(3) The power of the National Assembly to make laws for the peace, order and good government of the Federation with respect to any matter included in the Exclusive Legislative List shall, save as otherwise provided in this Constitution, be to the exclusion of the Houses of Assembly of States.

(4) In addition and without prejudice to the powers conferred by subsection (2) of this section, the National Assembly shall have power to make laws with respect to the following matters, that is to say: -
(a) any matter in the Concurrent Legislative List set out in the first column of Part II of the Second Schedule to this Constitution to the extent prescribed in the second column opposite thereto; and
(b) any other matter with respect to which it is empowered to make laws in accordance with the provisions of this Constitution.
5. If any Law enacted by the House of Assembly of a State is inconsistent with any law validly made by the National Assembly, the law made by the National Assembly shall prevail, and that other Law shall to the extent of the inconsistency be void.

Moreover Section 47 of the 1999 Constitution further provides that:
“There shall be a National Assembly for the Federation which shall consist of a Senate and a House of Representatives”.
Whereas section 47 of the Constitution established the National Assembly , it is actually section 4 of the Constitution that imbued the National Assembly with legislative powers to make laws. Section 4 of our Constitution is very similar to Article I, Section 1, of the United States Constitution -which system of government our democracy is modelled after-, the said Article 1 Section 1 of the US Constitution provides that:
“All legislative Powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of the United States, which shall consist of a Senate and House of Representatives”.
The Senate:
The Senate of the Federal Republic of Nigeria is composed of 109 Members- three members from each state of the thirty six states of the Federation and one from the Federal Capital Territory regardless of population or area—elected by the people in accordance with sections 48, 71 and 72 of the 1999 Constitution. Section 65 of the 1999 Constitution provides that a Senator must be a Nigerian citizen and at least 35 years of age, and must be educated up to at least School Certificate level or its equivalent. According to Section 318 of the Constitution a Senator must be literate enough to read, write, understand and communicate in English language to the satisfaction of Independent National Electoral Commission, thus strictly speaking, it is not a requirement of the Constitution that a Senator must possess any certificate; ability to communicate in simple English language suffices.
The term of office of a Senator is 4 years and unlike the President and a Governor, a Senator may be elected to the National Assembly for as many times as his constituents returns him to the National Assembly. Unlike in the United States of America where they have “Junior” and “Senior” Senators and election to their Senate is staggered i.e. they do not terminate at the same time, all Nigerian Senators are of equal status and start and end their terms of office at the same time. Another set of senators are therefore elected every four years upon the expiration of the tenures of their predecessors. If a Senator dies or resigns during his term, the Independent National Electoral Commission quickly and as soon as practicable conducts an election to fill the vacancy for the balance of the term of the deceased Senator. Each Senator has one vote.
The House of Representatives:
By the provisions of Section 49 of the 1999 Constitution the House of Representatives is composed of 360 Members elected every fours years from 360 federal constituencies of nearly equal population as far as possible, provided no constituency falls within more than one State. A Representative must be at least 30 years of age, must be a citizen of Nigeria in accordance with the Constitution.
Under the provisions of Section 64(3) of the 1999 Constitution, the President has the Constitutional responsibility of issuing proclamation for the holding of the first session of the National Assembly and has power also to declare the dissolution of the National Assembly. Subsection 1 of section 64 provides that the National Assembly shall stand dissolved at the expiration of four years commencing from the date of the first sitting of the Assembly. The National Assembly upon proclamation shall sit for a period of not less than one hundred and eighty one (181) days in a year. The life of each National Assembly is divided into four sessions. Section 60 of the Constitution authorizes each House to determine the rules of its proceedings. Pursuant to that authority, the Standing Orders of the Senate and House of Representatives were made. These Standing Orders and their subordinate Rules are subject to amendments from time to time by each House of the National Assembly.
Both the Senate and the House of Representatives have equal legislative functions and powers with certain exceptions. For example, the Constitution in Section 147(2) and 154(1) provides that the confirmation of ministerial appointees and Chairmen and members of Certain Executive Bodies shall be done only by the Senate. Under Section 157 (1) removal of Chairmen and Members of the said Executive Bodies shall only be made by the President after an address supported by 2/3 majority of the Senate praying the President to remove the affected member or Chairman. Again under Section 53(2)(a), in a joint sitting of the Senate and House of Representatives, the President of the Senate shall preside. Despite these and other exceptions both bodies have equal legislative powers. Section 58 of the Constitution is very clear on this; it provides that:
“The power of the National Assembly to make laws shall be exercised by bills passed by both the Senate and the House of Representatives...”
More so, overriding the President’s veto under subsection 5 of Section 58 requires the two-third majority of each House of the National Assembly. Consequently, the designation of one chamber of the National Assembly as the ‘‘upper’’ House and the other as the ‘‘lower’’ House is merely for administrative convenience and does not presuppose that one is superior or inferior to the other.
Furthermore, without prejudice to certain administrative exclusivity enjoyed by the Senate as adumbrated above, the chief function of the National Assembly is the making of laws, therefore as a counterbalance to the administrative exclusivity enjoyed by the Senate, the House of Representatives equally enjoys a certain level of numerical dominance which the House may deploy to overwhelm any stance taken by the Senate, however the House of Representatives rarely employs this advantage in deference to the seniority and primacy of members of the Senate. For instance during joint sittings and in certain matters like the consideration of appropriation or money bills under section 59 of the Constitution, the Senate must contend with the numerical strength of the House of Representatives especially where there is a disagreement and the Joint Finance Committee of both Houses were not able to resolve the disagreement. However this subtle dominance of the House of Representatives is delicately managed in order not to impede the smooth running of the National Assembly.
The Constitution further provides for the following features of the National Assembly:

Bicameral Sittings
The Senate and the House of Representatives sit separately. The Senate is presided over by the Senate President who is assisted by the Deputy Senate President. Members of the Senate elect them separately. The Senate sits separately. The House of Representatives on the other hand is presided over by the Speaker of the House. He is assisted of the Deputy Speaker. The two Houses hold joint sittings when need arises.

Committees:
All members of the Senate and House of Representative are members of at least a number of Committees. Most of the detailed work of legislation is undertaken by the Committees, which embark on investigative or fact finding tours, public Hearings among others. We shall examine committees in greater details in Chapter 3 of this book as they are very central and important in the passage of a bill into law.

The Constitutions of the Federal Republic of Nigeria (1979 and 1999) gave the National Assembly almost absolute powers over the National treasury and matters of prosecution of war with another country. As a matter of fact, the National Assembly regulates how the President functions as Commander-In-Chief. This indeed is the essence of democracy, which, as we all know, is defined as government of the people, by the people, and for the people. The people, at regular intervals, in our case, every four years, through adult suffrage choose new leaders. The leaders are expected to work for the good of the people.

This is why in our system, as with the system in the United States of America, it is only the legislature that can impose sanctions on holders of offices. For, instance only the legislature can remove a member of the legislative house from office; or the law courts, if a case, of criminal nature or any dispute arises. The only other way to remove a legislator is through a referendum to recall.

While the legislature can impeach (remove from office) the President, no matter how dissatisfied the President is with the legislature, he cannot dissolve it, even though he has constitutional powers to so do under section 64(3) of the 1999 Constitution, those powers are merely ceremonial and limited to the issuance of proclamation as the said section 64(3) is subject to section 64(1) which says that the National Assembly shall stand dissolved at the expiration of a period of four years. Indeed, where the executive disagrees with the legislature, and the President vetoes any bill, the National Assembly can brush aside (over ride) such a veto. This can only be done through two-thirds majority vote in both chambers. For any institution or organization to be regarded as independent it must be reporting to the National Assembly the same way as the Auditor general reports to the National Assembly.