Abuja — Second Republic Speaker of the House of Representatives Chief Edwin Ume-Ezeoke has described the rift between the Senate and the House of Representatives over sitting venue to allow President Umaru Yar'adua present the 2010 Appropriation Bill as "a joke".

He urged Senators to meet with members in the lower chamber to receive the President.

Ume-Ezeoke, who is also the national chairman of the All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP), called on Senators to set aside sentiments, saying the practice is both a tradition in Nigeria and a conventional practice around the world.

President Umaru Yar'adua had to postpone presentation of the 2010 budget yesterday because the two chambers of the national assembly had failed to agree on which chamber to sit and receive the president, even though previous sittings had been done in the chambers of the House of Representatives.

Ezeoke regretted that the dispute had been allowed to disrupt an important issue like budget presentation."It's a joke, they will settle it.

I just can't understand what is going on. How can the issue of venue cause a disruption in a matter as important as budget presentation?" he asked.

The former Speaker said such sittings had always been done in the lower chamber, even though it is the Senate President that presides.

He said, "During our time, national budget was read in the House of Representatives; there was no dispute about it. Well, maybe it is because we had more mature legislators than there are now."

Ezeoke also said the tradition in other countries running a two-chamber parliament is for the upper chamber to come to the lower chamber whenever there is a joint sitting.

"When the Queen was addressing the British Parliament about three or four days ago, she did so in the House of Commons, not the House of Lords.

Majority of the members of parliament are in the House of Commons. The practice is also the same anywhere you have a bi-cameral legislature," he said.

Ume-Ezeoke himself was at the centre of a similar row back in the Second Republic, when he refused to yield his Speaker's chair to then Senate President Joseph Wayas during a joint session to receive President Shehu Shagari's budget.

Wayas presided over the session, but sitting on another chair. Asked about the episode yesterday, Ume-Ezeoke said.

"There was no stalemate that prevented the National Assembly then from attending to important national issues in a joint sitting like the ongoing crisis. No, no. Two of us [Wayas and himself] sat side by side and the chairs were of the same height and the Senate President presided."