Judging from the document released by National Institute for Legislative Studies (NILS) the controversial salaries and allowances of the Nigerian lawmakers are smaller compared to the rest of the world.
If go to by the remuneration approved by the Revenue Mobilization, Allocation and Fiscal Commission, a member of the House of Assembly has an annual take home of N 285,981,800.00 after $3,000 tax deduction.
The basic and annual allowances of Nigerian senator is pinned at N 681,884,400.
Comparing this with the rest of the world, Nigeria lawmakers remuneration is the lowest.
View the document below for a comprehensive breakdown.
Mixed reactions have trailed the proposal by the national assembly to grant immunity to its presiding officers with many Nigerians describing the move as unnecessary and Ill timed.
Senate
The minority leader of the House of Representatives Hon. Leo Ogor was quoted as saying that the national assembly was proposing to amend the constitution to grant immunity to the presiding officers as well as the head of the judiciary as enjoyed by the president t and his vice and governors and their deputy.
But speaking with Vanguard in Abuja, respondents said the move was not borne out of altruism.
According to a lawyer, Barrister Manasseh Ejiofor, the proposal was uncalled for and smacks “legislative rascalism”
“Why are they bringing up the issue of immunity now? Whose interest are they serving? There are so many issues for the national assembly to address the least of which is the issue of immunity for its presiding officers. They should concentrate on making laws for the benefit of Nigerians and not their selfish selves.
“For instance, why can’t the national amend some of our laws that are obviously regain and needs to be brought in tune with modern realities. Granting immunity to the presiding officers of the National Assembly is the least problem that we have now. It is being done in bad faith” he said.
Another respondent, a senior civil servant who does not want to be named because of his status said the proposed amendment was just to protect the selfish interest of the assembly members.
“It is surprising that of all the laws that need amendments, the national assembly is contemplating granting immunity to its presiding officers. Nigerians elected them to make laws for the general well being of Nigerians and not a few members of the National Assembly. Nigerians should resist this move because it is not borne out of altruism” he said.
Another lawyer, Barrister Samuel Oloruntoba in his reaction said the move is to divert attention from the searchlight being beamed on the leadership of the National Assembly.
“Why have they not amended our laws to make it more difficult for civil servants to steal money? Why have they not made laws to make it more difficult for the kidnappers to operate freely. This proposed amendment is nothing but a self serving move and should be rejected by Nigerians ” he noted.
But a former members of the House of Representatives in his reaction said the amendment was necessary in order to shield the legislature from unnecessary interference from the executive.
“If the amendment scales through, it will strengthen the legislature against unnecessary interference from the executive and guarantee the independence of the legislature. Our democracy is still work in progress so we need such a law to make the institution stronger” the former lawmaker who does not want to be named said.
Chuks Okocha, Chuks Akunna, Omololu Ogunmade, Mohammed Bello and Onyebuchi Ezigbo in Abuja
APC National Chairman, Odigie Oyegun
As the Eighth National Assembly is inaugurated tuesday, the odds are in favour of former Kwara State Governor Senator Bukola Saraki to clinch Senate presidency in a contest that is certain to alter the fortunes of the APC.
This is despite spirited attempts made monday by Vice-President Yemi Osinbajo, the National Chairman of the All Progressives Congress (APC) Chief John Oyegun, and governors elected on the platform of APC to unite its members-elect behind Senator Ahmed Lawan for the Senate presidency and Hon. Femi Gbajabiamila for the post of speaker in the House of Representatives.
However, Saraki looks set to coast to victory following the decision last night of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) to back him. PDP also adopted Hon. Yakubu Dogara, Gbajabiamila’s main rival for the speakership, making the contest in the House too close to call.
An impasse over the leadership tussle in the federal legislature snowballed when APC conducted a straw poll on Saturday that threw up Lawan and Gbajabiamila as its choice for the posts of Senate president and Speaker, respectively.
But their emergence was rejected by Saraki, Dogara, and their supporters, who cried foul over APC’s attempt to foist its preferred candidates for the coveted posts in the National Assembly.
The situation has been made more precarious for APC with PDP’s emergence as the spoiler that may determine the outcome of the contest in both chambers of the National Assembly.
But in order to resolve the impasse that had ensued, the party and its governors made attempts to unite its members-elect behind its candidates for both posts.
Osinbajo, who yesterday was scheduled to hold a reconciliatory meeting with APC members-elect, at the last minute chose to stay away from the meeting to starve off the boycott of the meeting by Saraki, Dogara and their supporters.
Apparently, the veepee got wind of a plan to boycott the meeting by the groups loyal to both Saraki and Dogara, and decided to change plans to forestall an embarrassing situation.
Instead, it was the National Chairman, Chief John Oyegun who represented Osinbajo at the meeting, which held at the International Conference Centre, Abuja.
The meeting, though boycotted by most of the lawmakers, had about 60 members-elect in attendance.
Oyegun repeated the party’s appeal to APC lawmakers to toe the party’s line by voting for Lawan and Gbajabiamila for Senate president and speaker, respectively.
He urged the lawmakers to allow the party and the national interest override personal interests.
Shortly after Oyegun addressed the lawmakers, they left the venue in a buoyant mood at about 7 pm after it became obvious that Osinbajo was not going to make it to the meeting.
The absence of several APC members-elect was said to have been precipitated by a text message from Dogara informing all legislators loyal to him not to attend the meeting, as there were plans to arrest and detain them in order to shut them out until after the election.
The message read: “Information reaching us indicates that this purported meeting is a ploy to arrest and detain members until after tomorrow’s election. Members should therefore disregard the invitation.”
Speaking to reporters, a member of the House of Representatives, Hon. Parry Iriase, representing Owan Federal constituency of Edo State and supporter of Gbajabiamila, said that they had to leave because they still had a lot of things to tidy up before the inauguration of the House monday.
Iriase said the legislators had already met and conducted the straw poll, adding that the aim of the meeting was to ensure that members of APC went into the Assembly united.
“We have met at various levels and we have been meeting. The essence of this meeting was for the vice-president to address all the lawmakers, including those who are not happy with the straw poll.
“For those of us in the House of Representatives, we believe that out of the about 209 elected APC members, we have over 70 per cent of them on our side and we are confident that when we get to the house, we will muster enough members to get the position of speaker.”
Asked whether they will still meet with the vice-president, he said: “We were told that the vice-president was coming to address us, but we have waited and he is not here. We were told he is airborne and that he will come. But we have other things we need to iron out before tomorrow, so had to leave.
“Nigerians should expect a united APC at the end of tomorrow because we are a family and we believe that this is democracy in action. We are confident that things will work out well,” he said.
Similarly, former Yobe State Governor, Senator Bukar Abba Ibrahim said: “I don’t even know what is happening. We were told that the vice-president was coming to address us, but we have not seen him.”
Prior to the evening meeting with Oyegun at the International Conference Centre, Osinbajo was seen driving into APC’s national secretariat at about 4.50 pm to consult with Oyegun.
A party source said the veepee’s meeting with Oyegun was a prelude the meeting held with the party’s members-elect later in the evening.
Earlier, Oyegun had addressed journalists in his office where he appealed to the National Assembly members elected on the platform of the APC to respect the decisions of the party last Saturday over the choice of the leadership of the two chambers.
“I appeal to the party members at the National Assembly to please respect the views of the party and the decisions that they themselves took in selecting the persons they chose as presiding officers of the two chambers of the National Assembly: at the House level, Hon. Femi Gbajabiamila and in the Senate, Senator Ahmed Lawan.
“I want to make it clear that all the party did was to provide the platform for only the APC elected members to state their preferences for the key offices. This they have freely done by themselves in the presence of the party leadership, almost the entire NWC.
“But it seems some of the aspirants are not satisfied with the decisions they took. For me, I make an appeal that no individual interest should be allowed to override the overall interest of the members. I appeal that the party’s methods of doing things should be respected.
“We cannot impose anybody on you. All we did was just to provide a platform for them to do what they did. I appeal to them that the choice made in selecting their leaders should stand and I appeal to them to let peace reign. We are change agent. Therefore, this change should start with the conduct of the members themselves,” he said.
Oyegun stressed that as part of the party’s efforts to ensure amity among the members, Osibanjo would shortly address them in an hour’s time, but this did not happen.
He assured them that what was happening in the party was “one of the challenges we have faced and the APC had survived them all and this too shall come to pass”.
After the botched meeting that Osinbajo failed to attend, the horse-trading shifted to the governors of the APC, who met at an undisclosed location to arrive at a resolution of the impasse that had ensued.
The governors were initially scheduled to meet at the Imo State Governor’s Lodge in Asokoro, Abuja, but changed the venue when they discovered that journalists were going to lay siege on the original venue.
Sources privy to their meeting, however, informed THISDAY that they were also unable to resolve the crisis that had torn its members-elect apart and resolved to go to the National Assembly in the hope that they could swing the elections to favour Lawan and Gbajabiamila.
However, it was learnt that Saraki at press time was not prepared to step down. Instead, THISDAY gathered that he spent the whole of yesterday lobbying PDP Senators-elect for their votes from an undisclosed location.
In his bid to achieve victory, it was learnt that Saraki had reached out to Senator Ike Ekeremadu with the intention of offering the post of Deputy Senate President to the PDP.
His efforts, THISDAY learnt, eventually yielded fruit, when a meeting of the PDP NWC, senators-elect of the opposition party and former Senate President David Mark, was held at his Apo residence at 10 pm monday.
Ostensibly, the meeting was meant to agree on a position that the PDP caucus would take on who to support for Senate presidency and speakership in the House.
At the end of the meeting, which stretched into the wee hours of this morning, the National Publicity Secretary of the PDP Olisa Metuh, announced that the party had adopted Saraki and Dogara, and urged PDP members-elect to vote in accordance with the decision of the party.
Some members of the National Assembly are divided over whether or not the $1bn loan request made by President Goodluck Jonathan should be approved by the lawmakers.
Jonathan had on Wednesday sent a letter to the National Assembly, asking the lawmakers to urgently approve the external loan for the Federal Government to confront Boko Haram insurgency.
He said the external loan would be used to upgrade the equipment of the armed forces and the training of personnel.
Senator Magnus Abe (APC, Rivers State), in an interview with SUNDAY PUNCH on Friday, said he was not against the approval of the loan for the President.
He, however, said Jonathan should be able to account for the money released so far to fight the insurgents.
Abe stated, “My opinion all along over the funding of military operation against insurgency has been that Nigerians should not be too much interested in the amount of money being voted to execute the war. Rather, what should interest Nigerians is whether we are achieving the objective behind the release of the money.
“I have nothing against the release of money to fight insurgency but President Goodluck Jonathan should satisfy himself and Nigerians that the amount of money so far released for the anti-terrorism activities had been judiciously utilised.
“It will be a very sad development if it turned out at the end of the day that $1bn being requested for the President was diverted to politics or that some people in government saw it as an opportunity to amass wealth at the instance of the vulnerable, poor Nigerians whose lives and property are being wasted whenever the dreaded sect unleashes terror.”
On his part, Senator Babafemi Ojudu said the request by the President was “not desirable and obviously, not justifiable.”
He said, “As a country, huge sums of money have been voted for defence since the inception of the Jonathan administration and a huge percentage of the money, I believe, had been channelled to wage war against Boko Haram. The question is, have we been able to justify the utilisation of the money?”
Ojudu said he was part of the team that went to Borno State few weeks ago on a fact-finding mission.
According to him, the state government told the team that a huge percentage of its monthly allocation was being deducted by the Federal Government to fight insurgency.
“I am very sure the Senate will approve the money but how are we sure it is not part of the money that would be utilised to prosecute the 2015 general elections by the Peoples Democratic Party, which is the ruling party in the country,” he said.
Another senator, Kabiru Marafa, said he would not mind approving the loan, if it would assist in ending the insurgency.
He said, “There is no amount of money spent to bring peace and tranquillity to our troubled nation that is too much or too small. I do not even mind if we spent the entire budget or empty the Central Bank of Nigeria to end insurgency in our country. But we must be sincere in the application of the money for the purpose for which it was released.
“We all know the complaints of the military personnel on ground at the three north-eastern states. They had alleged that their welfare was not being adequately taken care of by those charged to do so.
“If President Goodluck Jonathan is sincerely looking for that money to carry out military activities that will restore peace to Nigeria, no right-thinking citizen of this country will go against it. I want him to maintain his stand on it because I know some of his advisers may suggest its diversion for political use and if that happens, we are in trouble in this country.”
Also, Senator Chris Ngige said he would need more details on the loan. These, he said, would assist the Senate in considering it.
He said, “For instance, we need to know the terms of the loan, whether it is interest-free or not. We must know the terms for repayment. All these pieces of information are not known, so we don’t have the details.
“We also need to know what percentage will go to procurement of more arms and equipment; the percentage that will go to personnel capacity building and the percentage that will be allocated to the Army, Navy, Airforce, the Department of State Security, the Police and other security outfits.
“I am also thinking the entire money is not meant for the military operations alone. We must know how much is being set aside to take care of the social, economic and religious impact of the insurgency because terrorism is like ulcer which takes time to heal,” Ngige added.
In the House of Representatives, some members also expressed opposing views over the President’s bid.
The House Deputy Majority Leader, Mr. Leo Ogor, applauded Jonathan’s decision as a necessary step he took to ensure that “adequate pieces of equipment are provided for our Armed Forces.”
Ogor, a PDP lawmaker from Delta State, said nobody expected Nigerian soldiers to confront members of the sect and defeat them if they did not have enough equipment.
He also stated that no amount of money was too much to spend on security, if doing so would restore normalcy to the North-East.
Ogor added, “What is the alternative if we don’t want the government to spend? We are fighting a war that is alien to us; we have to be fully prepared.
“It is totally unnecessary to politicise this issue when the lives and property of Nigerians are involved.”
However, House Minority Whip, Mr. Sampson Osagie, faulted Ogor’s position on the grounds that the legislature approved N1tn in this year’s budget just three months ago for the same reasons of equipping and training security personnel.
Osagie, an All Progressives Congress legislator from Edo State, argued that until Jonathan explained how the $1bn would be utilised differently from the N1tn already approved in the 2014 budget, “then, there are clouds of suspicion.”
He added, “Is the President borrowing the money to fund the N1tn budgeted for security in 2014? He has a lot of explanation to make.”
Osagie, who described the request as “laughable”, also said he was suspicious of Jonathan’s motive for making such request in a pre-election year.
He recalled that prior to the 2011 general elections, government’s expenditure on fuel subsidy rose to “over N1tn”, raising suspicions that substantial part of the money might have been used for electioneering.
“It is highly suspicious because we are approaching elections and this type of laughable request is coming.
“Why can’t government cut down on the many areas of waste in governance and save funds instead of resorting to external borrowing?
“Do we even know how much exactly we are owing as a nation?
“I totally oppose this loan”, Osagie added.
The Chairman, House Committee on Justice, Mr. Ali Ahmad, too did not spare the President.
Ahmad noted that “25 per cent” of the 2014 budget was earmarked for security.
He said, “We can’t see what they have done with the money because nothing has improved.
“Upgrading equipment and training Armed Forces personnel are not new issues; we approved N1tn in the budget for security.
“My position is that the military should come out and tell us how they have spent the 25 per cent of the budget we voted for security.”
Some civil rights groups also kicked against the external loan.
A United Kingdom-based political and public affairs commentator, Mr. Stephen Dieseruvwe, said the President should tell Nigerians how security votes had been spent.
He said, “I can tell you without mincing words that Nigerians are very angry about your posture on the fight against corruption and terrorism. Nigerians are getting to a breaking point, and I see it as a time bomb for a bloody disintegration of the geographical expression called Nigeria.”
But, an anti-corruption attorney and civil rights activist, Mr. Ugochukwu Osuagwu, said he supported the loan.
Osuagwu said, “The Nigerian Army has attributed its inability to tackle the Boko Haram insurgency to dearth of funds. N845 billion was budgeted for defence in 2014 and Army got just N4.8 billion this year so far. If the $1billion being sought is for the Army and other security agencies to fight Boko Haram, then it is justifiable.
“The Boko Haram guys are very powerful and we need to curtail them before they penetrate the South. Otherwise, they can wipe out Nigeria. I support the loan, provided it is meant to declare war on Boko Haram in the North and other parts they are located.”
Mr. Patrick Osayimwen is a member of the Edo State House of Assembly and is one of those suspended by the majority members of the House. Osayimwen who recently defected from the APC, represents Oredo East Constituency in the State House of Assembly. In this interview he advanced reasons why he left the APC, his rapport with the comrade governor, the crisis in the state legislature among other issues.Excerpts
By GABRIEL ENOGHALASE
Why did you leave the APC for the PDP?
I left ACN, not APC. My spirit left the ACN about two years ago. I represent Oredo East Constituency, which is the heart of Benin. You can all recollect that we had the Land Use Bill sometime in November 2012 and some of us spoke our minds on how we felt about it.
I represent Oredo East where we have the Edo State capital and my people in Oredo stood to be hit most by the tax burden. Some of us had reservations about this thing but I think that it was misunderstood that we were trying to play sharp politics, it was not sharp politics. But our grievances were not looked at. But unfortunately, hardly had we left the assembly than the tape of the debate was sent to the Government House to say this was what this said, this was what that said. That was very unfortunate for a parliament, because I believe a parliament should independent.
Less than a week after that, the party constituted a committee to try us for gross misconduct and anti-party activities. They forgot that the only place a legislator has immunity is on the floor of the House as anything you said there cannot be used against you. They set up a committee that was headed by Alhaji Usman Shagadi. The committee also had Mr. Frank Osazuwa and the Attorney-General of the state, Barrister Henry Idahagbon and a few other persons. I want to praise the courage of Alhaji Shagadi and Frank Osazuwa, the committee said what was going wrong and that the young men should not be crucified because they spoke the minds of their people; that they have the rights to voice the minds of their people. The report, however, never came out because the people (committee) told them that what they did was wrong. After that, they started to discriminate against us. As a way of punishment, they striped us of our status as ranking legislators who were on second term in the assembly, we were stripped of our privilege to be chairmen of top House Committees; We were even treated like minority members, though we were founding members of the party in the assembly. That was about 20 months ago. And it did not even end there as we were now even treated like minority members.
Factions within APC
Let’s not deceive ourselves, the factional crisis within the party in Edo State has been there for the past two or three years. There is the Edo Solidarity Movement that is perceived as the governor’s faction. It was well established that there was a Pastor Osagie Ize-Iyamu’s faction. No matter the member’s pretence, everyone was tagged with one faction or the other. You cannot lie about those things. I can remember that because of our relationship with the governor, the governor called us for a meeting that was held at about 7:00pm on Monday, May 12, 2014. He said some of us were trying to leave the party. I went to that meeting with Hon Jude Ise-Idehen. We explained to him that we respect him as a friend but we had seen that we were no longer wanted in the party and that we wanted to move on. We assured him that we will continue to support his government to develop the state. We told him that the rumour of impeaching or trying to impeach him was not in our agenda.
He tried to appeal to us not to leave with promises to redress our grievances. We told him that it was not about money or anything but it was about principle. Unfortunately for the governor he was surprised to see that there were still some principled men in the political system. For him, he could only imagine that we had an offer that was better than his own offer. As I speak to you today, PDP has not offered me a dime and I have not asked for kobo. If I wanted to collect money, it would have been from Comrade. But I am a man of conscience and I cannot collect money from a man when I know that I have made up my mind to do something else.
Why we approach the court and genesis of the crisis in the state house of assembly
When it became clear that there were plans to declare our seats vacant, the only option we had was to seek redress from court. We approached the court and the court ordered that our seats should not be declared vacant and that we should not be suspended. However, the Monday after we got this judgment that was granted by a Benin Federal High, thugs barricaded the Ring Road with banners and posters that we have collected money. They also demanded that we must resign. What a cheap blackmail! After seeing that the court had ordered them not to declare our seats vacant, they now went through the back door to suspend us indefinitely. If you suspend a lawmaker indefinitely, have you not declared his seat vacant? That is what we have been going through. However, I want to tell the people of my constituency and the entire people of Edo State that I was never offered money by the PDP neither have I received kobo from the PDP. That is the position of things as it stands today.
So have you moved out of your official residence as well?
I have never lived in that house. Thanks to God, I had already had my home and I have lived in the Legislative a Quarters. It has always been a case of spending one or two nights there occasionally, but I have never really lived there. However, I have some of my colleagues who have had to move their families out of the place because of the problem. I feel sorry for them but I don’t have such problem because I have always lived in my home for about seven years now.
It is unfortunate that some of us who have lived peacefully together for seven or three years, we have allowed politics to divide us. Now, some of them are now trying to drive out the wives and children of their colleagues.
It is indeed shameful because politics will come and go while friendship will remain. In ten months from now, this assembly will come to its end, but there is life after that. When people do things, they should always look at tomorrow because power is transient. It is an unfortunate situation but I believe there will be light at the end of the tunnel.
On May 9, 2014, three PDP members of the Edo State House of Assembly went to court to obtain an injunction ordering the House leadership not to declare their seats vacant or suspend them on any pretext. It is important to note that when 37 APC members of the Federal House of Representatives went to court to seek the same restraint the House Leadership and the National PDP asked a competent court of law to determine whether or not lawmakers should forfeit their mandates when they cross carpet. The courts are still interpreting that question.
Under the Constitution of Federal Republic of Nigeria, 1999, the grounds under which a member can cross-carpet are when his former party is in crisis or it is involved in a merger. The suspended members of the Edo State House of Assembly were members of the ACN who did not feel the need to move with the merger. On that score, they had right. It is instructive to note that Edo PDP demonstrated restraint when its legislator representing Esan Central Local Government, Hon. Victor Edoror, defected to the APC earlier in the year even though PDP was neither in crisis or in a merger. Our party saw it as his right to free choice until the question of ownership of mandate is settled legally.
The law relating to suspension of Honorable Members of the House is clear.
In the Legislative Houses (Powers and Privileges) Law CAP 87 Laws of the Bendel State of Nigeria, 1976, as applicable to Edo State of Nigeria, section 31, subsection 2 states that:
‘In the case of an offence committed by a member of the House, the House may, in addition to or instead of any punishment specified in subsection 1 of this section, order his suspension from the service of the House for such period as it may determine:
Provided that such period shall not extend beyond the last day of the meeting next following that in which the order is passed, or of the session in which the order is passed, which ever shall first occur’.
When therefore a member is suspended in accordance with this law, the suspension cannot be indefinite. The word used in the proviso under that section is shall and shall is mandatory. It therefore means that any suspension placed on a member of the House must lapse at the next sitting of the House. The Speaker of the House or indeed the House, has no option in the matter. A recall of such suspended member by the Speaker or the House is unnecessary. It is also unnecessary for the affected member to go to court to seek a declaration that such suspension has lapsed before he should be admitted back to the House. See the decided cases of:
1. Suit No. NIC/ABJ/69/2011 between Hon. Zakawanu Garuba vs Edo State House of Assembly & Anor.
2. Suit No. NIC/EN/07/2012 between Hon. Levis Aigbogun vs Edo State House of Assembly & Anor.
Therefore the suspension not being indefinite as at the time Hon. Uyi Igbe and Hon. Philip Shuaibu went to court on June 11, 2014, the suspension had lapsed.
Even the House Rules that Hon. Uyi Igbe and his co-travelers purported relied upon is subject to the Legislative Houses (Powers and Privileges) Law earlier mentioned above which is the Principal Law.
1. Under the House Rules, members cannot be suspended in absentia. They must be present in the sitting of the House where the offence or offences would have been committed.
2. The offence/s for which any members can be punished must be committed on the floor of the House.
3. The offence/s must be reported by the Speaker or the Chairman immediately after the commission of the offence by the named member.
4. A sitting Deputy Speaker cannot be punished by a pronouncement unless by a two-thirds majority of members of the House
In all the drama of Hon. Uyi Igbe and his co-travelers in the sitting of the House on Monday June 9, 2014, none of the supposed suspended members was present in the House that day making it impossible for them to commit an offence on the floor of the House that day. The House sat for only fifteen minutes from 10.10am to 10.25am as contained in the VOTES AND PROCEEDINGS No. 279 of the House of Assembly of the same date.
The alleged offence/s on which the suspension was hinged were claimed to have been committed outside of the floor of the House.
In the aforesaid Votes and Proceedings, it was Hon. Ohonbamu Paul (representing Egor Local Government Constituency) instead of the Speaker who under Matters of Urgent Public Importance rose and drew the attention of the House, in his words, ‘to the clandestine activities of some Honorable Members which has continuously undermine the peace that pervades the House’. According to him, ‘the continuous nocturnal meetings held by [the suspended members] is capable of threatening the peace of the House and by extension, the state and this amounts to gross misconduct on their part’. Nocturnal meetings (night meetings). Could these be said to have held on the floor of the House? No. Assuming this is correct, when have nocturnal meetings become an offence or gross misconduct under our laws? Aside all of these, were the Honorable Members given fair hearing? The answer is in the negative as they were not given any hearing whatsoever
In the case of one of their own Hon. Festus Ebea (APC Esan South East) who was before the supposed suspension, the Deputy Speaker of the House the House Rules as well as the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria made provisions for his suspension or removal from office to the effect that he cannot be removed from office except by a two-thirds majority of the membership of the House which is sixteen. In his own case, the members that sat were FAR LESS THAN sixteen.
In the case of Suit No. B/70/OS/2014 instituted by Hon. Uyi Igbe and Hon. Philip Shuaibu the said suit was filed at about 3.36pm on Wednesday June 11, 2014 an interim order was purportedly obtained the same day restraining ELECTED MEMBERS from ‘forcibly gaining entrance into the premises and legislative quarters of the third claimant or so ever interfering with the sitting activities and other functions of the third claimant pending the determination of the motion on notice’. What an interim order!
We wonder how elected members can be said to be forcefully gaining entrance into the ‘premises’ wherein they are elected to represent their constituencies or how can they be seen to be interfering with the sitting activities and other functions of a House wherein which they are elected to represent their constituencies.
Despite all of these, an appeal has been lodged against the order and an application for stay of execution on the said order has been filed and same pending before the court. Yet there is also a pending application to vacate or set aside the order same having been made in error.
It is now trite law that when an appeal has been lodged against an order of a court and an application for stay of execution of that order filed, that application must be taken first before any step in respect of the said order. Thus all the hues and cries about an order being disobeyed should not arise and are certainly out of place. On the contrary, the APC members in the House are those who are in perpetual disobedience of court order and processes and causing tension where there ought to be none.
That in the case filed by the three supposedly suspended law makers in the Federal High Court in Suit No. FHC/B/CS/48/2014 against Hon. Uyi Igbe and others, one of the principal reliefs is claim for declaration for perpetual injunction restraining them from suspending the claimants. Yet in defiance of this suit, he went ahead with his co-travelers to suspend the said three law makers INDEFINITELY thus going in a roundabout manner to circumvent the ruling of Justice A.M. Liman to the effect that their seats should not be declared vacant pending the determination of the suit. Put succinctly, indefinite suspension tantamount to declaring their seats vacant.
It is an elementary principle of law that once parties are in court the res (the subject matter of the action must be safeguarded and not destroyed until the action is determined by the court). The res in this instance is the non-suspension of the three members until the case is determined.
It is to be noted that at the stage the interim order was granted in favor of Hon. Uyi Igbe and others, Chief Ferdinand Orbih was not given audience in court by the Judge, reason being that he should wait until his clients are served.
The PDP in Edo State wishes to state categorically that the APC and its government must tow the line of peace and call its members in the Edo State House of Assembly to order as the PDP will not fold its arms and allow the use of thugs to harass and embarrass members of the House. They must be advised to obey and have respect for the rule of law, the orders of the courts and due processes.
Several groups on Tuesday protested through the streets of Benin City as battle for the control of the Edo State House of Assembly rages.
Some of the groups constituting of mainly youths were pro- Peoples Democratic Party and pro- All Progressive Congress.
The PDP group called for the recall of the four lawmakers suspended during Monday’s plenary.
Deputy Speaker, Festus Ebea, Friday Ogieriakhi, Patrick Osayimwen and Jude Ise-Idehen were the lawmakers suspended for alleged misconduct.
Leaders of the pro- PDP protesters, Rotimi Adams and Ojo Godwin said they were in the streets to protest against injustice.
Placards carried by the protesters read, “Uyi Igbe stops this action.” “Lawmakers are not Lawbreakers” “Mr. Speaker says no to Governor evil plan.” “Edo State Youths are against the action of Uyi Igbe,” “Mr. Speaker do your work well”
Rotimi stated that constitution of Nigeria allows for freedom of association and movement from one party to another.
He said they would continue to protest and cause possible disruption if the lawmakers were not recalled.
The pro-APC protesters stormed the assembly premises in their large numbers, alleging that PDP wants to make the state ungovernable.
They accused the PDP of attempting to replicate what happened in River State in the state.
Derrick Uhunmwagho who spoke on behalf of the protesters urged Edo people not to be afraid.
According to him, “Benin City is known for a peaceful co-existence. APC youths will not allow anybody to forment trouble in the state. We will defend what belongs to us.”
Some of the groups constituting of mainly youths were pro- Peoples Democratic Party and pro- All Progressive Congress.