Written by From Idowu Samuel, Christian Okeke and Dapo Falade
Friday, 11 June 2010
THE leadership of the House of Representatives, on Thursday, said it would not allow the House to be destabilised and told the group opposed to the Speaker, Honourable Dimeji Bankole, that “enough is enough.”
It said it had for so long restrained itself from applying the rod against members whose activities, it stressed, had been inimical to the stability of the House, noting that the leadership believed in the spirit of camaraderie among its members, a reason it had overlooked security reports against erring members.
The Minority Leader, Honourable Muhammed Ali Ndume, made this known during an interaction with correspondents in Abuja.
A group of aggrieved members had, on Wednesday, addressed the media during which they issued a seven-day ultimatum for Honourable Bankole to resign from his post, failing which they threatened to supply the anti-corruption agencies and the presidency with evidence of his alleged corruption.
Honourable Ndume said the House was in the mood to celebrate the achievement of the National Assembly in amending the 1999 Constitution and the Electoral Act than giving time to plots to set it backwards by the sheer vendetta being pursued by some of its members.
The minority leader said when the House resumed, it would be focussing attention on more pressing national issues, including the receipt of the amended constitution from state Houses of Assembly and its eventual signing into law by the Federal Government.
He said the aggrieved members still had a good chance to make peace with the leadership between now and resumption of the House, failing which the House would wield the big stick against anyone whose activities were considered divisive, inimical and dangerous for the survival of democracy.
Ndume said the law governing the House empowered the leadership to apply sanctions against any members who breached the rules, noting that the leadership would not hesitate to sacrifice any member who might wish to stand between it and progress.
“I look at the set of people who issued that ultimatum to the Speaker and discovered that they are the same set of members raising the same issue at different times. They are colleagues to whom we ascribed much of integrity and high sense of acumen, law and order. We are not to join issues with them on the pages of newspapers and so we are using this opportunity to call them to order, because enough is enough,” Ndume said.
He urged the Progressive Group to present the documents against the Speaker for authentication, noting that it had, in the past, uncovered many fake documents being bandied as tools for blackmailing the leadership, most especially during the car purchase scandal.
Meanwhile, as the tension generated by the crisis currently rocking the House of Representatives lingers, the Arewa Youth Forum (AYF) has thrown its weight behind Honourable Bankole.
In a reaction to the development, AYF said the action of the lawmakers was deliberately hatched to cause instability and derail “the good image of the House of Representatives.”
The body, in a statement signed by its president, Alhaji Gambo Gujungu, said the Progressives had not only shot themselves in the foot by allegedly misleading the House in the past, but were still bent on desperately foisting what it called “their selfish agenda on the House by blackmailing the leadership and the speaker through non-existent offences which they could not substantiate.”
While calling on the presidency to intervene in the matter in order to safeguard the synergy existing between the various arms of government, AYF maintained that the National Assembly had proved that it was a stabilising factor in national politics and governance.
“We are proud of the efforts of the two chambers of the National Assembly in separately passing and harmonising the amended constitution. This has never happened in the history of Nigeria and the leadership and membership of the two chambers deserve commendation instead of condemnation and distraction from any quarters,” the AYF said.
In a related development, the Oyo State caucus in the lower chamber, on Thursday, said the Speaker, Honourable Bankole, could not be impeached or forced to resign.
Fielding questions from newsmen in Ibadan, on Thursday, seven members of the Oyo State caucus in the House of Representatives, led by Honourable Depo Oyedokun, said the ultima-tum issued by 10 of their colleagues could not hold water.
“We have 360 members in the House of Repre-sentatives and it is not possible for all of us to go the same way. I want to tell you that it is inevitable that we must have a rebellious group among us and we must have hiccups.
“However, those in the rebellious group are not more than 10 among us. We, the Oyo State caucus in the House of Representatives and even the entire representatives from the South-West, are firmly in support of the leadership, headed by Honourable Dimeji Bankole. And we want to affirm that he is not going anywhere,” Honour-able Oyedokun said.
The Oyo State caucus, in a statement, also condemned the recent crisis that engulfed the state House of Assembly, describing the botched move, on Tuesday, to impeach the Speaker, Honourable Moruf Atilola, as an attempt to disturb the prevailing peace in the state.
The statement was signed by seven of the lawmakers, including Ho-nourables Depo Oye-dokun; Mulikat Akande Adeola; Segun Akinloye; Abass Olopoenia; Ajibola Muraina; Waheed Gbede and Folake Olunloyo-Osinowo.
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