The names of 12 deceased members of the National Assembly are still on the website of the ninth Assembly as serving members in the upper and lower chambers, Sunday PUNCH has learnt.
While the Senate lost four of its members, eight members of the House of Representatives have died since the inception of the ninth Assembly.
The death of a former lawmaker representing the Lagos East Senatorial District, Bayo Osinowo, popularly known as Pepper, was the most recent death recorded by the red chamber.
He died of COVID-19 complications in one of the isolation facilities of the Lagos State Government in June, 2020. In his stead, a former Commissioner for Finance in the state, Senator Tokunbo Abiru, was elected as a consensus candidate to the upper chamber.
Others who lost their lives were the lawmaker representing Imo North, Senator Benjamin Uwajumogu, who died on December 18, 2019; Senator Ignatius Longjan, who represented Plateau South and died on February 10, 2020; and Senator Rose Oko, who represented Cross River North but died on March 23, 2020.
However, findings showed that Osinowo’s name was on the National Assembly website as a serving lawmaker as of noon on Saturday. The website also showed that Lagos had four senators, as opposed to the three constitutionally stipulated to represent each state of the federation.
On the website, members of the Senate from Lagos State, include Senator Bayo Osinowo (Lagos East), Senator Tokunbo Abiru (Lagos East), Senator Oluremi Tinubu (Lagos Central) and Senator Solomon Olamilekan Adeola (Lagos West).
Sunday PUNCH also found out that other members at the upper and lower chambers whose names were still on the website were mostly from the ruling All Progressive Congress.
In the House of Representatives, the name of a former lawmaker, who represented Garki Bubara Constituency of Jigawa State, the late Muhammadu Fagen-Gawo, was on the website. Fagen-Gawo was a second-term lawmaker and a member of the ruling APC before he died in the United Arab Emirates, Dubai, while on a medical trip in December 2019.
Like Gawo, another member from Jigawa State, Yuguda Hassan-Kila, who was the Chairman of the House Committee on Customs and Excise, died from an undisclosed illness in 2021. Hassan-Kila, a former member of the House of Representatives, became the second federal lawmaker from Jigawa State to die in the current National Assembly.
But the former Customs comptroller-general had his details on the website as the lawmaker representing Gwaram Constituency in the House. Apart from Hassan-Kila, another legislator, Ekpenyong Bassey, who represented Oron Federal Constituency in Akwa Ibom before his death on April 24, 2022, was listed on the NASS website as a serving member.
Although his name was removed, it was observed that other details, including his email address and date of birth, were still conspicuously placed on the website.
Also on the website were the details of the late Jude Ise-Idehen, who represented Egor/Ikpoba Okha Federal Constituency and secured the ticket of the PDP to seek reelection before he died recently.
When our correspondent reached out to the Special Adviser on Media and Labour to the Clerk to the National Assembly, Austen Adesoro, on why the names of dead members were still on the website, he promised to get back but was unable to provide an ample response as of the time of filing the report.
Adesoro simply said, “I will check and revert, please.”
