Senate President Godswill Akpabio has issued a fresh warning to the contractor responsible for renovating the National Assembly complex, threatening legal action over what he described as a recurring and embarrassing pattern of microphone failures in the Senate chamber.

Speaking during Wednesday's plenary session, Akpabio did not hide his frustration, telling colleagues that the ongoing technical faults amounted to a national embarrassment. He expressed displeasure over repeated microphone failures in the Senate chamber, describing the situation as an embarrassment to the country. The remarks followed an uncomfortable moment a day earlier, when Akpabio represented the Senate at the opening of the House of Representatives' National Assembly Open Week and found himself, alongside Speaker Abbas, contending with the same equipment problems in full public view.

According to Akpabio, both chambers share more than a coincidence when it comes to their technical troubles β€” the same contractor that handled the renovation of the House of Representatives also handled the Senate's refurbishment, a detail he says strengthens the case for holding the firm accountable across both projects rather than treating the issues as isolated incidents.

The Senate President instructed lawmakers to keep track of every instance of malfunction, signalling that documentation would form the backbone of any eventual legal case. He framed the record-keeping as a pre-emptive move, ensuring that when action is eventually taken, the justification will already be a matter of public record rather than a decision made in haste.

The frustration is not new. Lawmakers have voiced concern about the quality of the renovation almost continuously since returning to the refurbished chambers in April 2024, citing not only unreliable microphones but also poor audio quality and a malfunctioning electronic voting system. Those failures have, on more than one occasion, forced both chambers to abandon electronic voting altogether in favour of manual head counts β€” including during deliberations on sensitive constitutional amendment bills such as the proposal to establish state police forces.

The scale of investment makes the recurring faults especially difficult for lawmakers to accept. Reports indicate the renovation contract, awarded to Visible Construction Limited, was valued at N42 billion β€” a sum that dwarfs the N37 billion earlier approved for the same complex under the previous administration. The project took roughly two years to complete, during which the National Assembly operated out of temporary chambers.

This is not the first ultimatum the contractor has faced. Lawmakers had previously given a one-month deadline for the audio issues to be resolved, with Akpabio warning at the time that the chamber's standing among the continent's legislatures demanded a system befitting the scale and reputation of Nigeria's parliament. That deadline appears to have come and gone without a lasting fix.

Beyond the immediate irritation of dead microphones mid-debate, the episode feeds into broader public scrutiny of how National Assembly renovation funds have been managed. Separate from the microphone dispute, the Assembly's contracting practices have already drawn legal challenges from civil society groups seeking clearer accounting of related infrastructure spending.

For now, Akpabio's message to the contractor is unambiguous: continued failures will no longer be tolerated quietly, and the Senate is prepared to pursue whatever legal remedies are necessary to secure a system worthy of the chamber's standing.