The senate and the House of Representatives on Monday suspended their sitting in honour of their dead colleague, Ms. Funke Adedoyin.
Adedoyin, a representative from Kwara State, died on Friday afternoon in Abuja. Her profile on the national assembly website puts her age at 56.
A fellow lawmaker from Kwara State, Mr. Razak Atunwa, said Adedoyin died of cancer.
The senate adjourned barely an hour after it resumed from its annual recess which lasted for ten weeks.
The House of Representatives, after resuming on Tuesday, also adjourned its sitting to honour the late lawmaker.
Premium Times reports that the national assembly had embarked on its annual recess on July 24 amidst controversies of defection and preparation for party primaries. It was scheduled to resume on September 25 but was postponed to October 9.
Opening the session for the day, the senate president, Dr. Bukola Saraki, led the prayers. The lawmakers, thereafter, went into an executive session.
After the closed-door session, Saraki read out some letters from President Muhammadu Buhari.
Coming under Order 43 of the Senate’s standing order, senate leader, Mr. Ahmed Lawan, thereafter, asked the Senate to observe a minute silence in honour of the deceased.
He also asked the Senate to suspend plenary for the day in line with the ‘tradition of the national assembly.’
The lawmakers adopted the two motions after a voice vote.
The plenary was adjourned at 12:19 p.m.
Adedoyin was daughter of famed Nigerian industrialist, Samuel Adedoyin.
She was appointed minister of state for health by former President Olusegun Obasanjo during his second term between 2003 and 2007.
Adedoyin was amongst a host of All Progressives Congress (APC) lawmakers who joined the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in a mass defection earlier in the year.
