Discordant tunes trail Plateau assembly ‘coup’

Tongues have been wagging since last week’s impeachment of the deputy speaker of Plateau House of Assembly. UKANDI ODEY, reports the mixed feelings trailing the development

Fireworks in the Plateau State House of  Assembly early last week launched a commencement of ‘hostilities’ towards 2019, and consumed the former deputy speaker in what smacks of a parliamentary ‘coup’ clinically conceived and brutally executed by a coalition of conspiratorial forces and betrayals determined to erect  frontiers to service and police their own political fortunes.

“Today, on the floor of the Plateau state House of Assembly, the Speaker, Right Honourable Peter Azi, read a letter written and signed by me, announcing my defection from the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) to the All Progressives Congress (APC)”. These were the words of fallen deputy speaker of the Plateau State House of Assembly, Hon Yusuf Gagdi, in a press statement on October 25, 2016, as he made history, decamped as deputy speaker, to pitch tent with the ruling APC, and to that extent further strengthened the APC majority in the House.

One hundred and fifty nine days – or barely six months – later, on the same floor of the Plateau State House of Assembly, it was Honourable Yusuf Gagdi, again, and another letter – this one shriller and potently more sinister like a parcel bomb. This time, a conspiracy was unfolding and the conspirators were determined and appeared unstoppable in their quest to make parliamentary history by enthroning a new order.

As it is, according to reports, not even a horrible dream did suggest  to Honourable Gagdi that a calm night was going to fade and dissipate into a turbulent but bright morning when his honourable colleagues will pull long knives to do him dishonour. But the omens were actually ominous this Tuesday morning of April 4, 2017, as the haunted Gagdi did not show up timely at the House of Assembly complex early as is customary of him. This was good for the grudging legislators who had perfected their plan and rehearsed their script to execute their plan of declaring the deputy speaker removed and relieved of his position when he was absent at plenary.

According to sources at the House of Assembly, the beans got spilled even before the executive session where the speaker, Hon Peter Azi, was hard put and honed to conform and comply. Although the executive session for the first time in the life of the 8th Assembly did not subsist for more than ten minutes, a concerned call from the House of Assembly to Gagdi who was still at home alerted him on the development, and was able to beat traffic and arrive at about 10.15am just before they would enter the chamber for plenary.
Gagdi was quick and bold to confront the speaker, Peter Azi, and the majority leader, Henry Yunkwup, with report of the planned ‘impeachment’, and offered that if as deputy speaker he had become a problem and a cog in the wheel of the House, he was ready and willing to hand the speaker a concise correspondence immediately to announce his resignation at plenary.

That would have neutralised and defeated the plan and bargain the signatories of the ‘coup’ had reached with their ‘sponsors’. But the majority leader was quick to debunk the report that any such plan was on the paper, urging both Azi and Gagdi to go in for plenary, claiming that all was well.
But all was actually not well, especially for Gagdi. The first thing he noticed at plenary, immediately the speaker had conducted normal opening prayers, was circumvention of procedural order and established practice.

Rather than reading out the issues on the order paper for the day’s business, the House majority leader, Henry Yunkwup, APC, representing Shendam state constituency, called the attention of the speaker and announced that there was a letter from members of the House, with eighteen signatures calling for the removal of the deputy speaker as they no longer had confidence in him. There was neither ‘observation’ nor ‘point of order’ raised as such matter should come under matters of urgent interest after the issues in the order paper had been thrashed.
Also, sources at the chamber claimed that as the plot was being executed,  the Speaker simply called on the Clerk of the House to confirm the signatures.

Once the Clerk affirmed the signatures, the speaker let go the gavel, and Honourable Yusuf Gagdi was “hereby removed”. It was photo finish, as it was gathered. The nomination of a replacement came in handy, as member representing Qua’an Pan North state constituency,
Eric Dakogol, APC, nominated the member representing Dengi state constituency, Sale Yilmong, APC, whose dressing and appeal that day was unusually sartorial. In what observers and analysts have agreed was a show of uncommon political brinkmanship and equanimity, the ousted Yusuf Gagdi, representing Kantana state constituency, from the same Kanam LGA as the nominee, made history again by seconding the nomination of his successor, who was sworn in a few moments later, to accomplish a process of horse

trading which  ngaged the collaborators throughout the preceding night.
But what are the grounds of the removal? Addressing the press immediately after the sitting, House Majority Leader who arguably coordinated and delivered on the project, gave no reason, simply saying the change had become inevitable, and that at best the House would state reasons for its action in future. This has fueled
speculations as many argue that since the removal news has put the matter in the court of public opinion, the underlying offence should have been laid bare for public scrutiny and evaluation as to its justiceability; and appropriateness of the House majority decision and action.
The traduced former deputy speaker himself waxed spiritual as he responded to inquiries from the press after he was downed. Gagdi said he did not anticipate when he got elected in to the House as member  that he  would become deputy speaker.

Quickly too, he added that what has happened to him could be an act of God, elucidating that it could be a spiritual clearance and insurance for growth, as he fetched bountifully from the history of fallen speakers and deputy speakers of the same House of Assembly who later made it further in politics. He said this conviction emboldened him to second the nomination of his successor, saying it was an opportunity for him to emerge when he did, and that “power comes from God”.
But that has not foreground the public talk mill from rolling and grinding. Some accuse the former deputy speaker of being over ambitious – including claiming without substantiation that he has been plotting to become governor of Plateau state, without stating when and how.

Some also say he was using his position as deputy speaker to oppress his colleagues. Yet, some say his frosty relationship with the commissioner for local government and chieftaincy affairs, Dayyabu Garga, over local politics in Kanam, and his critical stand on the subsisting local government councils’ management committees, are combined fronts that framed his battles and eventually did him in, to cut his influence, glamour, and visibility; and begin to clip his wings as the footfalls of the countdown to 2019 sound within ear shot.

Some also accuse Governor Simon Lalong as the template and chief editor of the script, its diagnostic handling process, and, of course, its clinical finish. That he was away when the operation was carried out is viewed by his accusers as even more complicit as extenuating of him in the circumstances. However, it was learnt on good authority that Lalong has since distanced himself from the incident. In a telephone chat with the torpedoed former speaker, Lalong is said to have expressed shock that the APC-dominated House will do that to their victim, knowing he had to abandon the PDP on whose platform he got elected to swell the APC presence in the House.

Analysts say an analysis of the signatures or how the House was divided on the development is illuminating in seeking insights into the fundamentals and causatives of what promises to become incendiary in the span of the 8th Assembly of Plateau State. Out of twenty four members, seventeen signatures were secured – in other words, slightly more than two third majority. Peter Azi, APC, Jos North West, Yusuf Gagdi, APC, Kantana, Naanlong Daniel, APC, Mikang, Abubakar Mohammed Balo, APC,  Qua’an Pan South, Yahaya Adamu Mavo, APC, Wase, Abdul Yanga, APC, Mangu North East, and Ibrahim Baba Hassan, APC, Jos North North, were the seven members who did not append their signatures to the project.

Irked by the defection of Gagdi to the APC, the power play brought the PDP a much desired moment of good bargain and sweet vengeance – and they all signed in favour of the removal to teach an ‘erring’ Gagdi a bitter lesson in politics and politicking. But what of the APC legislators? Why did they not allow him soft landing by accepting his option to resign if the project is not political and sponsored for predetermined objective.

Why did his successor, Sale Yipmong, also from Kanam as Gagdi, not whisper to his brother about the plot but chose to invest in sartorial elegance that day? The hand of the clock is ticking and pregnant with the fullness of time. Unlike whirlwind, what goes round should not come around.

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