An aggrieved APC member, Yakubu Dogara who is also a strong
contender of the House of Reps speakership seat, has released a statement
objecting to Hon Gbajabiamila's emergence as APC's mock poll House of
Representative speakership candidate. Read his statement below ...
We in the 8th Assembly Consolidation Group of Hon. Yakubu
Dogara wish to state our position on the event of today Saturday 6th June 2015
as follows: That we got invitation for a meeting summoned by the APC leadership that we went to the meeting with the expectation the party wanted to give us
last word ahead of Tuesday’s inauguration of the House.
However, we began to
notice some moves in the hall where members supporting Hon. Femi Gbajabiamila
started campaigning and soon we saw ballot papers being moved in the hall.
The National Chairman of the party Chief John Oyegun
informed us that they were going to conduct a mock, straw or primary election.
The 8th Assembly Consolidation Group mandated Hon. Abdulmumin Jibrin to speak
on our behalf.
First, we read out the statement issued by our leader, President
Muhammadu Buhari on the election of National Assembly leadership when he said:
“It doesn’t matter who the person is, where he or she comes from. There is due
process for selection of leaders of National Assembly and I WILL NOT INTERFERE
IN THAT PROCESS. Nigeria has indeed entered a new dispensation.
My
administration does not intend to repeat the same mistakes made by previous
governments.” We then told Chief Oyegun that it is either he is disagreeing
with the President, undermining his stance, or does not agree that the
president is the leader of the party. Secondly, we informed the party that the
remaining two aspirants in the race for the Speaker are of the APC since no PDP
member is contesting for the position.
We should therefore be allowed to sort it out among
ourselves on Tuesday. Thirdly, if we were coming for election we ought to have
been notified well ahead. We therefore view this as an ambush, manipulative and
indicative of the fact that the party leadership came with a predetermined
position which was skewed to favour Hon. Femi Gbajabiamila.
Fourthly, we also
informed the APC leadership that the process they were about doing was contrary
to the provisions of the party’s constitution which did not prescribe that a
primary election be conducted for the Speakership, contrary to the provisions
of the House Standing Orders and above all, contrary to the provisions of the
1999 constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.
The next Speaker of the House should be allowed to be
elected in tandem with the constitution. Consequently, we demanded that the
process be delayed with atleast 24 hours to enable us to prepare and mobilise
our members. After raising these objections, the national chairman Chief Oyegun
did not respond to any of the points raised.
Initially, the chairman agreed to
halt the process but one hour later the National Vice Chairman North Senator
Lawal Shuaibu came up and said the process must go on whether we like it or
not. At this stage we had no option than to walkout of the hall and address the
press.
The election of the House Speaker is not an exclusivity of the APC but
include all members from all political parties. Our position is that we are not
a party to what they did and we maintain that the election of the Speaker of
the House of Representatives cannot be conducted outside the chamber of the
House and we are ready to participate in that process on Tuesday 9th June, 2015
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