Eight Members Can’t Remove Bankole -Rep Member

Written by Olayinka Olukoya and Lekan Yinusa, Abeokuta
Saturday, 12 June 2010

The Chairman, House Committee on Pensions in the House of Representatives, Honourable Rasaq Tunde Adewusi, has said that the eight members of the House calling for the resignation of Speaker Oladimeji Bankole are insignificant.

The group, known as Progressive-Minded Legislators, had given Bankole a seven-day ultimatum to resign or be “disgraced out of office” over alleged corrupt practices.

The lawmaker representing Yewa North/ Imeko-Afon Federal Constituency spoke with journalists on Friday in Abeokuta, the Ogun State capital, while receiving a Humanitarian Award of Excellence from the National Association of Nigerian Students (NANS), Zone D, comprising Lagos, Ogun, Oyo, Ekiti, Osun and Ondo states.

He said that the disagreement was “personal” to the people in question, saying that those clamouring for Bankole’s resignation would need to explain to other 352 lawmakers why they wanted him to resign when the House resumes from its recess on June 22.

“The House is a House of 360 members. Eight of us cannot just come out and say they want the Speaker to resign. The reason behind it is best known to them and they will have to tell the whole House when we resume on the 22nd of June. The issue is more personal, that is all I can see to it.

“Nobody among us has ever returned the car to the National Assembly. What they meant about the car issue, I don’t know. We shall deliberate on it on the floor of the House. When we get to the bridge, we shall cross it,” he added.

Adewusi assured Nigerians that with the emergence of Professor Attahiru Jega as the new chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), the country would witness a free and fair election in the next general election.