…Speaker, Deputy Speaker part with clash
From Ndubuisi Orji, Abuja
There is time for everything. A time to begin and time to end. So, says the holy Book. So, it was for members of the House of Representatives, as the curtain fell on their four-year tenure today. The Ninth Assembly was inaugurated on June 11, 2019.
The countdown, for members of the Ninth Assembly started, after the February 25 presidential and National Assembly elections, where many of them lost their bid to return to the parliament for the 10th Assembly, which would be inaugurated this week.
Recall that many members of the Green Chamber had fallen by the wayside during the nomination of candidates for the 2023 general elections while others failed in the election proper.
Consequently, as the House reconvened after the election break, it devoted the remaining part of the tenure to addressing pending legislative businesses in the form of outstanding bills and conclusion of ongoing probes into various issues.
Also, politicking for the leadership of the 10th House was another key issue that assumed front burner in the Green Chamber in its last days. Nevertheless, the campaigns for the leadership of the House brought to the fore the cold war raging between the Speaker, Femi Gbajabiamila and his deputy, Idris Wase, as both of them clashed, openly on the floor of the House for the first time, in their four years tenure.
Members had been divided into camps, since the All Progressives Congress (APC) settled for Tajudeen Abbas and Benjamin Kalu as its preferred choice for the positions of speaker and deputy speaker of the 10th House. The development had pitched the Speaker, Femi Gbajabiamila, against some of his close allies who are aspiring to lead the House in the next dispensation.
They include Wase, chairman, House Committee on Appropriations; Muktar Betara, chairman, House Committee on Navy, Yusuf Gagdi, Aminu Sani, Sada Soli and Miriam Onuoha.
On that fateful day, the Speaker had asked that the order paper for the next legislative day be made light to enable members attend the commissioning of the permanent site of the National Institute of Legislative and Democratic Studies (NILDS), located along Airport Road, Abuja. However, Wase openly disagreed, saying that the business of the House should take precedence over any other thing.
Wase had said: “Mr Speaker, I am beginning to see this getting so funny and we have lost quite a number of period of time. For the commissioning of projects for God’s sake, why do we have to shelve a lot of activities that we have just to go and witness the commissioning of a project of NILDS? I want to beg sir that we should do our functions.
“Those who have the interest to go, they have the right to. But our main primary function is this parliament.”
The Speaker retorted: “Mr Deputy Speaker, this is the first time in history. I have been in this House for many years, perhaps even longer than anybody here. This is the first time in history that a Deputy Speaker will be challenging what the Speaker is saying.”
Basically, the House spent the last two weeks, prior to its valedictory session, which held last week, trying to tie every loose end, in its legislative duties, especially as it concerns its oversight function.
In its last legislative week, the Green Chamber adopted the report of its Ad hoc Committee that probed the total “assets, interest and liabilities of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) and its subsidiaries.”
The panel recommended a forensic audit of the
NNPCL, worth about N28 trillion, as well as all accounts operated by the company.
Also, the Green Chamber adopted the report of the House Ad hoc Committee on “Petroleum Products Subsidy Regime in Nigeria from 2013–2022,” urging the office of the Auditor General of the Federation to undertake a forensic audit to ascertain whether the sum of N413 billion borrowed from the Central Bank of Nigeria ( CBN) for Premium Motor Spirit (PMS) subsidy payments was refunded after the passage of the 2015 budget.
Last Tuesday, the House Committee on Aviation dismissed the launch of the proposed national carrier, Nigeria Air, by the immediate past administration, as fraud. Consequently, it called for the arrest, prosecution and sanction of everyone involved in the controversial unveiling of the proposed national carrier, among others.
Then came the valedictory session on Wednesday. The Speaker, while setting the tune for the days business, in his welcome address, recalled the progress the Ninth House recorded in the last four years.
Nevertheless, Gbajabiamila decried the failure of the House to push through the gender bills, during the last constitution review exercise.
According to him, “to succeed in our shared ambition of building a prosperous and peaceful country, we must do everything within our power to ensure that our daughters and those yet to be born can grow up in a more open, more equal society than their mothers did.
“Unfortunately, we did not succeed in removing some of the constitutional barriers that have long stood in the way of women’s full and unhindered participation in the politics, governance and economy of our nation. This issue must continue to be at the fore of our national conversations. I hope the 10th House of Representatives will take up the mantle and do better than we did. “
The valedictory session was an opportunity for most of the lawmakers to exchange pleasantries in the chamber for the last time, especially for the majority of them, who will not be part of the 10th House.
However, one issue that re-echoed in most their speeches was the need for forgiveness.
Gagdi, in his address to his colleagues, had noted: “What I want to say is the message of forgiveness, I want, on your behalf and other members, to forgive one another. In these assignments, we must have offended one another.”
Though his speech was greeted with grumbling by some of the lawmakers, the Plateau-born lawmaker stated that “irrespective of the grumbling, what is right is right and people must learn to forgive others”.
Other speakers, like the Chairman, House Committee on Electoral Matters, Aisha Dukku, also re-echoed the need for the members of the Ninth House to forgive themselves.