Back in session on Tuesday July 2, 2019, all was seen to be normal until signs emerged that there were issues with the appointment of principal officers. JOSHUA EGBODO writes.
The House of Representatives after inauguration on June 11 went on a two week recess to allow for some logistic activities to be completed, especially the allocation of office spaces and chamber seats to members.
Signs of trouble
It was widely assumed that the house on resumption of plenary last Tuesday would, through the Speaker, Femi Gbajabiamila, announce the remaining principal officers, as was done in the Senate. However, this was not the case, as the ad-hoc committee on media unexpectedly walked into the media centre of the House of Representatives to announce to journalists that there was need for more consultations.
Beside the positions of the speaker and deputy speaker, which were filled at the inauguration of the house on June 11, by Gbajabiamila and Hon Idris Wase respectively, the other offices waiting to be filled were those of the majority leader, the minority leader, chief whip, minority whip, deputy majority leader, deputy minority leader, deputy whip and the minority whip.
A member of the committee, Hon Salam Bamidele stated that the announcement was not made, because of “the need for further and wider consultation”. He subsequently gave assurance that the announcement would be done before the end of last week.
There were speculations before then that the announcement was being delayed following disagreements within the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) over who should be appointed. On the majority leadership position specifically, there were reports that the party national chairman, Adams Oshiomhole, and Kano state governor, Abdulahi Ganduje, were bickering over who should be appointed to the post.
PDP NWC vs its BoT
Well trouble was brewing within the opposition PDP as its National Working Committee (NWC) and members of the Board of Trustee (BoT) strongly differ over the choice principal officers in the House of Representatives.
Whereas the PDP caucus in the green chamber with the support of the party’s NWC had endorsed Hon Kingsley Chinda of Rivers state, the BoT held contrary position. In fact, some members of PDP had kicked against the choice of Hon Chinda, arguing that the party chairman is from Rivers, it will be wrong for the part to choose its minority leader from the same state. They further alleged that the governor if Rivers state, Nyesom Wike was trying to take every available position for the South to Rivers state at the expense of other states.
It seems the APC had noticed the crack and decided to take advantage. So it encouraged some PDP members to liaise with other members of the opposition parties to elect minority leadership, different from the list forwarded to the Speaker Gbajabiamila by the PDP NWC. The speaker received another letter endorsed by 111 members of the opposition party’s in the House where Hon. Ndudi Elumelu was endorsed as the minority leader of the House.
How the trouble manifested
At the plenary last Wednesday, the brewing issues were openly ignited. Deep into the session, Gbajabiamila attempted to make announcement of the minority principal officers, but he was interrupted by Hon Kingsley Chinda, who apparently may have been privy to the list before the speaker.
The lawmaker raised a point of order, and reminded Gbajabiamila that there was need for him to abide by a list already sent by the leading opposition political party, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) as the mode of selection of the names therein had complied with the house’s standing orders, on Order 7, Rule 8.
PDP in its communication to the speaker had named Chinda as minority leader, Chukwuka Onyema as deputy minority leader, Yakubu Barde as minority whip, and Ajibola Muraina as deputy minority whip. However, the list before Gbajabiamila, which was later made public as the one from the conglomeration of all the minority political parties in the house had Ndudi Elumelu, Toby Okechukwu, Gideon Gwani and Adekoya Adesegun for those positions in that repestive order.
Rowdy session follows
The plenary later turned chaotic as the disagreement raged. Some members attempted to snatch the mace, as others moved to prevent them. The session was momentarily disrupted, after which Gbajabiamila was urged by some of his colleagues to continue with the announcement. He subsequently announced the group led by Elumelu as the minority principal officers of the house.
PDP raises alarm
But PDP had in a statement raised alarm over attempts by the speaker to impose a minority leader on the party.
It stated “It is instructive to state that the PDP had duly written to the Speaker of the House of Representatives, after consultation with other minority members in the House of Representatives, notifying him of members that have been selected for leadership position in the House of Representatives, in line with dictates of the rules and parliamentary practice.
“However, to our utter dismay, the PDP had discovered that the speaker attempted to smuggle in names other than those recognized and forwarded to him as the leaders of the minority in the House of Representatives” the party lamented.
Blueprint gathered from sources within the party that some members of the BOT condemned the move by the party’s national chairman, Prince Uche Secondus, and Governor of Rivers state, Nyesom Wike’s attempt to manipulate the party and impose their brother on the party.
The aggrieved members noted that politics is better when everyone is carried along and when the collective interest of all stakeholders and zones are taken into consideration. Therefore, they urged the party to support the emergence of Elumelu, rally round him and cautioned that any attempt to reverse the trend will backfire and tear the party down.
Little wonder that shortly after the announcement of Elumelu as the minority leader by the speaker, Elumelu and his supporters at the end of plenary quickly rushed to residence of the chairman of PDP BoT, Senator Walid Jubril who received him and assured him of the support of members of the BoT.
But barely 24 after that endorsement, Senator Walid withdrew his support, “As a result of the fracas in the House of Representatives during the selection of the PDP/minority, principal officers, the BOT and the NWC have decided to intervene immediately by the NWC forwarding the party’s list to the speaker for urgent implementation.
“I want to assure all that the NWC and BOT will continue to work together in order to move the party forward” Senator Walid said.
Instead, the party’s chairman, PDP NWC summons Elumelu, Oke, Ikpeazu, others.
A statement by the party’s national publicity secretary, Kola Ologbondiyan said, “the National Working Committee (NWC) of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in its 473rd meeting today (Thursday) resolved to summon the following members to a crucial meeting at the party’s national secretariat, on Friday, July 5.
“The members are; Hon. Ndudi Elumelu, Hon. Wole Oke, Hon. Lynda Ikpeazu, Hon. Anayo Edwin, Hon. Gideon Gwadi, Hon. Toby Okechukwu and Hon. Adekoya Abdul-Majid.
“The summon is in line with the provisions of Chapter 10 (57) (3) of the Constitution of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). The members are to appear before the members of the National Working Committee at 10 am”.
Two sets of opposition leadership
Two opposing groups of minority principal officers emerged, and held on to the right of office. Chinda, who was ruled out of order by Gbajabiamila during the session, insisted that Gbajabiamila’s action was an imposition on the minority caucus.
Hon. Chinda in protest said that the speaker has no powers to read a letter which emanated from members of the house to nominate the minority leader but quoting Order 8, Rule 7 of the House Rules, the speaker ruled him out of order and hell was let loose in the green chambers as members in support and against the nomination of Elumelu attempted to disrupt proceedings and seize the mace.
Speaking after the chaotic plenary, Chinda led his group of supporters at a media briefing, explaining that “We speak to you as members of the minority caucus in the House of Representatives. Let us very sincerely apologise to you and to Nigerians for the fracas that took place today. It is not in our character as very responsible people. It is not in our wish that it should go that way. It is also not proper that as parliamentarians, we will sit down and see our rights being trampled upon. So, we apologise to Nigerians.
“The issues are that of minority leadership. It is standard parliamentary practice, that in parliament minority leadership comes from among the minority parties and a correspondence is always sent….In our case, that was followed. The PDP in discussion with other minority parties agreed on her leadership in parliament and forwarded a letter to Mr Speaker dated June 21 2019. A copy of the letter was received on June 26 in the office of the speaker.
“We came today only to hear our dear speaker attempting to read what he termed as correspondence from a congregation of political parties: That some honourable members have endorsed some other persons as minority leader outside what was forwarded to him. And that he would want to adopt that.
“From our rules, particularly Order 7, Rule 8, member of the minority parties shall among themselves nominate the minority leader, deputy minority leader, minority whip and deputy whip. We have all met as members of minority parties twice, did our nomination and we agreed that the parties should go back and choose among the nominees and get back to us. The parties did exactly that and we reconvened and received the report of the parties, and we left satisfied. Only for us to attend plenary today and see this ambush. It is unfortunate as this is very unparliamentary. We are not going to take it.
“We must do things properly. We are members of the minority party. Our leadership will not be determined by the majority party. We are aware of the scheming of the APC, the target is to decimate the minority party in parliament and that they will decide who becomes minority leader. We will not allow that to happen. We stand on the letter from the party. As far we are concerned, our leaders have been selected and appointed by the party. It is only for the speaker to read the correspondence that he has. We don’t have any issue with our leadership”.
Immediately after, Elumelu, also with his group of supporters, appeared to state their own position too. According to the lawmaker, “We are here to speak to Nigerians and also to reaffirm the newly appointed minority leaders of this Green Chamber (House of Representatives). Graciously, God has made it that my colleagues from nine minority parties have nominated me as their minority leader. We are all from nine political parties.
“For us, who are from PDP, we are very loyal to the PDP. We believe in the PDP. And, of course, we have no other party than the PDP. We have followed what has happened and have accepted our nomination based on Order 7 Rule 8. We have complied with the position of the rule of the house.
The House’s position
The House as an institution, however, appeared to have settled for the Elumelu-led group. Addressing the press on the same day too, Hon Yusuf Adamu on behalf of the house’s ad-hoc committee on media justified the action of the speaker, as according to him, “the house is guided by rules, and it does not recognise only one political party to form the minority”.
Unending disagreement?
The bickering was to continue on the floor on Thursday, when Chinda came into the chamber, and went with his team to occupy the seats allocated the minority leadership. His attempt at blocking a motion seeking disciplinary action against those who created the chaos during the session of the house the day earlier, was rebuffed by Gbajabiamila, who insisted that he was not on his allocated sit in the chamber.
The controversial Gbajabiamila’s threat
Following the continuous defiance by Chinda, the speaker had to issue a caution that “nobody should test the resolve of the ninth assembly of this house. If you try, you will regret it”. However, Hon Mark Gbillah, told the speaker that his statement was tantamount to “a threat” against members, to which Gbajabiamila replied that Gbillah should “go and check your dictionary to know the difference between threat and warning”.
The suspension
The PDP after meeting with the Elumelu group opted to suspend them perhaps as a deterrent to subsequent acts of insubordination against the party.
However, the caucus of the party in the House of Representatives has called on the NWC to rescind the suspension of Elumelu and the six others.
Hon Lego Idagbo, who spoke on behalf of the caucus, argued that they have not done anything wrong, as due process as spelt out in the standing orders of the house were followed in arriving at the nomination of the leaders.
“We call on the NWC of the PDP to rescind its decision of suspending the minority leader, Hon. Ndudi Elumelu and six others”, he said and announced that the minority caucus of the house has passed “a vote of confidence on the newly constituted minority leadership”.
He submitted that since their decision in selecting the leaders was “in consonance with Order 7, Rule 8, which is a derivative of section 60 of the 1999 Constitution, as amended. We stand by our decision. We stand by our leaders”.
He denied that members were bribed to the tune of One million naira each, for them to take the decision of nominating Elumelu and the others, saying it was “an insult”.
PDP paid in own coin?
Normalcy may have been restored, especially with the move by Hon Dan Asuquo, who through a motion appealed to Gbajabiamila that the whole development should be put behind, for the house to move forward. Speaking on behalf of members of the PDP, he said “we believe in your leadership.
Though calm may have been restored, but many have seen the action of the speaker as payback to the PDP, as a similar scenario played out in 2015, with the then speaker, Yakubu Dogara refusing to name the officers endorsed by the then opposition APC. Arguing on the need to ensure a national spread of positions, Dogara, though then an APC member, but fully backed by the PDP, only reluctantly accepted the party’s position after much persuasion.
While calm may have been restored in the house, Elumelu and his co-travelers may yet have the PDP to contend with, as its National Working Committee (NWC), angrily suspended them last week, over their actions in the house. A case of rebellion? Some have asked but the implications of party’s move, may no doubt, be felt soon.
