* PDP members attempt to snatch mace
* Two minority leaders emerge
* Elumelu: 115 out of 147 minority Reps voted for me
* Chinda: APC can’t appoint minority leaders
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Fight broke out in the House of Representatives yesterday as factions of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) attempted to remove the mace in order to prevent Speaker Femi Gbajabiamila from announcing minority leaders chosen by the eight opposition parties in the chamber.
The minority leaders as announced by Gbajabiamila include Hon. Ndudi Elumelu (PDP, Delta) as minority leader, Hon. Toby Okechukwu (PDP, Enugu) as deputy minority leader, Hon. Gideon Gwani (PDP, Kaduna) as minority whip and Hon. Adesegun Adekoya (PDP, Oyo) as deputy minority whip.
The PDP national leadership had in a letter to the speaker nominated Hon. Kingsley Chinda (Rivers) as minority leader with Hon. Chukwuka Onyema (Anambra) as deputy minority leader, Hon. Yakubu Barde (Kaduna) as minority whip and Hon. Muraino Ajibola (Oyo) as deputy minority whip.
But, 115 out of 145 members of all the eight opposition parties in the House, in a counter, elected Elumelu (PDP, Delta) as minority leader, Okechukwu (PDP, Enugu) as deputy minority leader, Gwani (PDP, Kaduna) as minority whip and Adekoya (PDP, Oyo) as deputy minority whip.
Trouble, however, started at the plenary, when Speaker Gbajabiamila recognised the letter from the minority parties announcing Elumelu as the minority leader.
Chinda had raised a point of order citing order 7 (14) to draw the attention of the speaker to an earlier communication from the PDP, endorsing him and others as principal leaders of the minority in the House.
According to Chinda, the letter was received by the speaker on June 26. He argued that it was the responsibility of the party to write to the speaker on nomination of principal officers, but was ruled out of order by Gbajabiamila.
The speaker explained: “I will take the burden of reading order 7(8), which talks about minority leadership. It says clearly and unambiguously that it is all the minority parties that shall nominate. However, you want to slice it and read that there is no ambiguity.
“And order 7(12) that talks about eligibility and not the process; the list I have here has nobody without legislative experience. There are eight minority parties in this House and if you are telling me that the PDP had written a letter to me stating who the minority leaders should be, it is outside the scope of PDP because PDP is only one of the minority parties.
“Other minority parties must by our rules be involved in the nomination of minority leaders. The letter I have here has the signatures of several of their members; other minority members have signed into this and it is important we stick to the rule of law. So, Hon. Chinda, based on what I have read from the law, there’s no lacuna and you are ruled out of order.”
After the explanation, the speaker proceeded to read out the names of minority leaders nominated by the eight parties, but members loyal to Chinda surged towards the mace, but were prevented by those in support of Gbajabiamila and a free for all ensued.
The sergeant-at-arms has to form a barricade around the mace.
In the rowdiness, Speaker Gbajabiamila read out the names and hit the gavel inviting for a motion to adjourn the House.
“Honourable move the motion for adjournment; honourable move motion for adjournment, move motion for adjournment my friend,” he repeated.
The motion was moved and the House adjourned abruptly, with members guiding and providing cover for the Speaker to leave the chambers.
Briefing the media after plenary, Elumelu said his faction was the leadership recognised by 115 out of the 145 members representing all the eight opposition parties in the House.
His words: “We are here to speak to Nigerians and also to reaffirm the newly appointed minority leaders of this Green Chamber. 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 PDP. We believe in PDP. And of course we have no other party than PDP and 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.”
Representatives of the other political parties, who affirmed Elumelu’s submission, insisted that the PDP cannot choose leaders for all minority parties since it was just one among equals.
Hon. Leke Joseph Abejide (ADC, Kogi), Hon. Ojo Kingsley China (AA, IMO), Hon. Ifeanyi Anthony Ibezi (APGA, Anambra) and Hon. Tajudeen Adeyemi Adefisoye (SDP, Ondo) confirmed the position of the minority parties on the nomination of Elumelu as minority leader.
At another media briefing, Chinda said the minority leadership announced by the speaker was unacceptable to them. He said the APC cannot chose leaders for the minority parties.
He said: “We speak to you as members of the minority caucus in the House of Representatives. Let us very sincerely apologize 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 seat down and see our rights been trampled upon. So, we apologize to Nigerians.
“The issues are that of minority leadership. It is standard parliamentary practice that parliament minority leadership comes from among the minority parties and a correspondence is always sent; a letter from the major minority party and in our case that was followed.
“The PDP in discussion with other minority parties agreed on her leadership in the parliament and forwarded a letter to Mr. Speaker dated June 21, 2019. A copy of the letter was received on June 26 by 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 leaders outside what was forwarded to him and that he would want to adopt that.
“From our rules, particularly Order 7, Rule 8, members 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 party should go back and choose among the nominee’s and get back to us.
“The parties did exactly that and we reconvened and received the report 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.
“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 parties in parliament, so 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.”
Meanwhile, the APC too seems to be embroiled in leadership tussle as a member of the party from Jigawa, Hon. Muhammed Gudaji Kazaure, has advised the party not to impose any leader on the House.
Kazaure, who said he was speaking on behalf of many of his colleagues, noted that “after consultation with my APC colleagues, we oppose what the party did by choosing for us a leader.”
Declaring for the position of majority leader, Kazaure said he was most loyal to the party than those being chosen by the party as their leaders and therefore called on President Muhammadu Buhari to restrain the party from going ahead.
Also, PDP has told Speaker Gbajabiamila that he can’t impose leaders on its members in the House.
The party, in a statement by its National Publicity, Kola Ologondiyan, said that it had duly written to the Speaker, after consultation with other minority members in the House of Representatives, notifying him of members that have been selected for leadership positions in the House, 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 recognised and forwarded to him as the leaders of the Minority in the House of Representatives,” the party noted.
It warned against the abuse of parliamentary practices and procedures as well as the convention by the Speaker and urged him to respect the rules.
The list forwarded to the Speaker by the PDP is as follows:
1. Hon. Kingsley Chinda – Minority Leader
2. Hon. Chukwuka Onyema- Deputy Minority Leader
3. Hon. Yakubu Barde – Minority Whip,
4. Hon. Muraina Ajibola – Deputy Minority Whip,” PDP stated.
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