Ndubuisi Orji, Abuja
The year 2019 was unique in the House of Representatives as it marked the end of the Eight assembly and the beginning of the Ninth assembly. Expectedly, it was characterised by drama, intrigues and subterfuge, as lawmakers and their respective political parties schemed to outwit one another.
Prior to the 2019 general elections, both the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) and the major opposition party, the Peoples Democratic Party ( PDP) had anticipated a majority in the Green chamber, so as to produce the leadership without much hassle.
However, the outcome of the elections altered the dynamics for the two political parties and by extension the House of Representatives. The APC had won 213 seats, leaving the PDP with 127 lawmakers, while other opposition parties produced the remaining 20 seats in the 360-member House.
In the aftermath of the National Assembly polls, attention shifted to the contest for the positions of speaker and deputy speaker, as well as other principal officers’ positions.
Among those who indicated interest in the speakership seat were Femi Gbajabiamila, Umaru Bago, Nkeiruka Onyejeocha, John Dygeh, Segun Odebunmi, Chike Okafor, Emeka Nwajiuba and Olajide Olatubosun. Others included Tahir Monguno, Alhassan Ado-Doguwa, Yusuf Yakub, Idris Wase and Mukhtar Betera.
Gbajabiamila’s emergence as speaker
Prior to the inauguration of the Ninth assembly on June 11, the APC leadership endorsed Gbajabiamila and Wase as its choice for the speakership and deputy speakership positions. Following that endorsement, all the other contestants, except Bago, withdrew from the centest .
The speakership contest was to become a straight fight between the APC and the PDP, as the opposition party endorsed Bago for the leadership of the Ninth House and directed its members to vote for him.
At the inauguration of the Seventh Assembly in 2011, Gbajabiamila, then minority leader, had led opposition lawmakers to a coalition with some “rebel” members of the PDP to defeat the party’s choice for the speakership position.
There was a repeat in 2015, when PDP lawmakers, now in opposition joined forces with some members of the APC to stall Gbajabiamila’s quest to be speaker, to the chagrin of the ruling party, which had earlier adopted him for the coveted position.
Consequently, not a few believe that going by what obtained in the Seventh and Eight assemblies, the speakership was a done deal for Bago, following his endorsement by the PDP, especially as he equally enjoyed the support of the immediate past speaker, Yakubu Dogara.
The former minority leader, Leo Ogor, few days to the election of presiding officers, had boasted that the opposition lawmakers will cast the deciding vote in the contest.
“The Minority Caucus of the House of Representatives has never been more certain of its strength in casting the deciding votes towards determining the next House leadership and we commend the APC Speakership aspirants for seeing the real need to carry all members along,” Ogor stated in the aftermath of a Supreme Court judgment that nullified APC’s victory in Zamfara State in the 2019 polls.
Regardless, Gbajabiamila was to later defeat Bago with a landslide in the speakership contest, thereby proving bookmakers wrong. The Surulere-born lawmaker had penetrated the opposition caucus and struck deals with individual members of the caucus, making it impossible for them to speak with one voice.
The outcome of the speakership contest was to influence other developments in the House for the remaining part of 2019.
Minority leadership crisis
On July 3, the House was thrown into pandemonium after the Speaker announced that he has received a communication from minority lawmakers nominating Ndudi Elumelu; Toby Okechukwu, from Enugu, Deputy Minority Leader; Gideon Goni, Minority Whip and Adekoya as Deputy Minority Whip.
The PDP had in a separate letter to Gbajabiamila named Kingsley Chinda, Chukwuka Onyema, Yakubu Barde and Muraina Ajibola as its choice for the positions of minority leader, deputy minority leader, minority whip and deputy minority whip respectively.
Expectedly, Chinda, who represents Obi/Akpor Federal Constituency of Rivers State, and his supporters kicked, describing the situation as unacceptable.
However, Gbajabiamila went ahead to announce Elumelu and others as leaders of the minority caucus, stating that his action is based on Order 7 Rule 8 of the House Standing Rules.
“I would take the burden of reading Order 7 Rule 8 and it states that only members with cognitive knowledge and experience can be nominated as minority leaders. And let me quickly remind you that back then, I emerged minority leader through the approval of my peers and colleagues and it was not the party that nominated me..”the speaker noted in response to protestations by the Rivers born lawmaker.
Chinda later told journalists that “It is standard parliamentary practice, that in parliament, minority leadership comes from among the minority parties and a correspondence is always sent; a letter from the major minority party. In our case, that was followed. The PDP in discussion with other minority parties agreed on her leadership in parliament and forwarded a letter to Mr Speaker dated June 21, 2019. A copy of the letter was received on June 26 in the office of the Speaker.
“We came today only to hear our dear Speaker attempting to read what he themed as correspondence from a congregation of political parties. That some honorable members have endorsed some other persons as minority leader 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 party twice, did our nomination and we agreed that the party should go back and choose among the nominees and get back to us. The party did exactly that and we reconvened and received the report of the party and we left satisfied only for us to attend plenary today and see this ambush.”
On the other hand, Elumelu said “ 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 know 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.”
The PDP later suspended Elumelu and six others from the party and named Chinda as the leader of its caucus in the House. The opposition party’s decision to designate Chinda as its caucus leader did equally not go down well with the minority leadership.
Today, opposition lawmakers in the House, especially those elected on the platform of the PDP are pitched against themselves in a seeming endless battle for supremacy.
Analysts say the minority caucus crisis is a fallout of the politics that characterised the emergence of the current leadership of the House.
Bills and motions
Besides the heated battle for the speakership position and the minority leadership crisis, 2019 witnessed the introduction of many bills in the Green chamber. In all, no fewer than 450 bills were introduced in the House between June to December 2019.
According to the chairman, House Committee on Media and Public Affairs, Benjamin Kalu, 287 of the bills were introduced within the first one month of the Ninth House.
Some of the bills, which have gone through first reading and awaiting second reading, include Pharmacy Council of Nigeria (Establishment, Etc.) Bill, 2019; National Security Trust Fund (Establishment, Etc.) Bill, 2019; Prohibition of Mercenary Regulations of Certain Activities in the Country of Armed Conflict Bill, 2019; Lobbyists (Registration and Regulation) Bill, 2019.
Others are National Welfare Trust Fund Management Commission (NWTFMC) Bill, 2019; National Council for Widows, Dependent Children and Orphans (Assistance) Bill, 2019: Anti-Bully School Standards Bill, 2019; Nigerian Unemployment Graduate Fund Bill, 2019; National Forestry Trust Fund (Establishment, etc.) Bill, 2019; National Anthem and Pledge (Compliance) Bill amongst others.
However, one of the bills, which sought to alter the 1999 Constitution ( as amended), to provide for a single term of six years for the President and state governors, was rejected by the House.
The bill, which was sponsored by John Dygeh, an APC member from Benue State, also sought a six-year multiple tenure for members of the National Assembly.
On the flip side, the House passed for second reading a bill seeking to outlaw caretaker committees in the administration of local government areas in the country.
The proposed legislation entitled “a bill for an act to alter section 7 of the constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria 1999 (as amended)” is sponsored by Dachung Bagos.
According to Bagos, “essentially, this bill seeks to provide for election and tenure of office for local government chairmen/councilors and also prescribe mode of exercising legislative powers of the local government council,” and remove local government administration from the control of state governors.
Similarly, the House, also passed for second reading, a bill seeking to make it mandatory for the Federal Government to allocate 40 per cent of its annual budget to capital projects over the next ten years.
The proposed legislation, which is sponsored by Gbajabiamila, is known as the “Economy Stimulus Bill,” The Economy Stimulus Bill, if passed into law, shall be in force for 10 years, after which, it shall be reviewed by the National Assembly.
The proposed legislation prescribes five years imprisonment or a fine of N50million or both for anyone, who violates the law or attempts to frustrate its implementation.
Also, the House adopted several motions calling for investigations into different areas in the polity. While some of the probes have been completed, others are either ongoing or yet to commence. Some of the probes carried out in 2019 include that of abandoned projects in the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC), in telecommunications industry, the activities and operations of the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) among others.