Constitutional basis and structure
Chapter V of the nigerian constitution vests federal legislative power in a bicameral National Assembly consisting of a Senate and a House of Representatives, with Section 4(1) stating that "the legislative powers of the Federal Republic of Nigeria shall be vested in a National Assembly" S3. The Senate has 109 members: three from each of the 36 states, elected from three senatorial districts apiece, plus one senator representing the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja S1. The House of Representatives has 360 members, each elected from a single-member federal constituency, with constituencies apportioned across the states by population rather than by a fixed per-state allocation, so that more populous states hold more seats than less populous ones S1. Together the two chambers hold 469 seats, elected for a four-year term that runs concurrently with the terms of the President and state governors under Nigeria's general election cycle S1
Leadership and internal organisation
Each chamber elects its own presiding officer and principal officers at the start of an Assembly. The Senate is led by the President of the Senate, assisted by a Deputy Senate President, with a Senate Majority Leader, Minority Leader, and their deputies, and a Chief Whip and Deputy Chief Whip completing the principal officer roster; the House of Representatives mirrors this arrangement under a Speaker and Deputy Speaker S1. The 10th National Assembly, elected alongside the February 2023 general elections, was inaugurated on 13 June 2023 S2. Senator Godswill Akpabio, a former governor of Akwa Ibom State, was elected President of the Senate that day, defeating a rival candidate by 63 votes to 46, with Senator Jibrin Barau of Kano elected unopposed as his deputy S2. In the House, Hon. Tajudeen Abbas was elected Speaker with 353 of 359 votes cast, and Hon. Benjamin Kalu of Abia State was elected Deputy Speaker unopposed S2. Both chambers' leaderships were drawn from the ruling All Progressives Congress, which held a majority in both houses following the 2023 elections S2
Law-making and oversight powers
The National Assembly's core function is to make laws for the federation on matters within the Exclusive and Concurrent Legislative Lists set out in the Second Schedule to the Constitution, a division of subject-matter authority described further in federal structure of nigeria S3. A bill must pass both chambers in identical form and receive presidential assent to become law; where the President withholds assent, the Constitution allows the National Assembly to override the veto and enact the bill by a two-thirds majority of each House. Beyond ordinary legislation, the Assembly holds the power of the purse: no money may be withdrawn from the federation's Consolidated Revenue Fund except as authorised by an Appropriation Act passed by the National Assembly, giving the legislature a recurring annual check on the executive budget. The Assembly also exercises oversight of federal ministries, departments and agencies, and the Senate alone confirms a range of presidential nominees, including ministers, heads of federal agencies, and senior judicial and security appointments, before they may take office S3
Constitutional alteration role
The National Assembly is also the initiating body for constitutional change. Under Section 9, an alteration to the Constitution requires the support of at least two-thirds of all members of each House before it can proceed to the state Houses of Assembly for ratification by at least two-thirds of the 36 states, with an even higher four-fifths threshold in each federal chamber for a narrower set of entrenched provisions S4. This gives the National Assembly a gatekeeping role: no constitutional amendment can reach the states for ratification without first clearing the two-thirds (or four-fifths) threshold in both the Senate and the House of Representatives, a bar that has caused several proposed alterations in recent years to fail at the federal stage before ever reaching the states S4
Power to remove the President
The Constitution gives the National Assembly the authority to remove a sitting President from office for "gross misconduct," a term Section 143 defines to include "a grave violation or breach of the provisions of this Constitution or a misconduct of such nature as amounts in the opinion of the National Assembly to gross misconduct" S5. The process begins with a written notice of allegation signed by at least one-third of all members of the National Assembly and presented to the President of the Senate, who must serve it on the President and every member of the Assembly within seven days S6. Each House then has fourteen days to decide, by a two-thirds majority vote, whether to proceed to investigate the allegation; if both Houses agree, the Chief Justice of Nigeria appoints an independent seven-member panel, drawn from outside the public service, the legislature and political parties, to investigate and report within three months S6. Only if the National Assembly adopts the panel's report by a two-thirds majority does the President stand removed from office, a threshold and multi-stage process that means, as reported by legal commentators, that no sitting Nigerian President has been removed from office by this procedure since 1999 S6S5
The National Assembly within the wider structure
As the federal legislative chamber, the National Assembly sits alongside the nigerian presidency as the executive branch and the federal judiciary within the separation of powers the 1999 Constitution establishes, and its state-level counterparts are the individual State Houses of Assembly, whose concurrence the Assembly needs for constitutional alteration and whose own composition is addressed under federal structure of nigeria S3S4. Assessments of how effectively the National Assembly exercises its oversight and law-making functions vary by commentator and are, consistent with this site's neutrality policy, presented here only as attributed viewpoints rather than as the article's own judgement S4