Getting it right at the Kogi Assembly

By Williams Charles Oluwatoyin

Oftentime people are at deficit with facts when they do not do proper and in-depth investigation of situations on ground, disconnected from facts, brewing contents of discord and fanning embers of discord within the polity. Without doubt, Kogi State House of Assembly made more headlines in the past few weeks than Mr. President himself. The Kogi House of Assembly impasse brought myriads of imbroglio to the state in general.

Bills are not passed, sessions are not held, no thank to some miscreant who by faux pas find themselves in the distinguished hallowed house, throwing sanity and common sense into the dustbin and hell bent on kidnapping power by force. Marauders that they are, they are raping the people of their rights, not minding whose ox is gored. What a selfish act of wickedness.

The questions are: why would our people’s idiosyncrasy for power in Africa be rapacious? Why would any supposedly sane and politically educated personality want to defy the logic of equity fairness and justice as entrenched in the Federal Character, for ego and selfish motives? It is absurd. Federal Character states that appointments into political offices should be balanced to guide against stirring up mistrust, resulting from fear of domination among ethnic divides. It is therefore wrong to have a sitting governor from the central senatorial district, a speaker from same district, while the Chief Judge comes from same place.

Even an unlettered man would know with the use of common sense that it is immoral and unethical. Those who enshrined the principle of Federal Character in the nation’s constitution took into consideration our peculiar nature as far as ethnic issues are concerned.

The story of five impeaching the speaker is an unmitigated illogical nonsense, unfounded, not true and miles apart from the poles of truth. It’s a mere rouse to work on the sensibility of gullible minds. It failed from inception though. With the new government of Alhaji Yahaya Bello in place, there was a need to spread power to all ethnic component of the state so all would have a sense of belonging.

This was agreed upon with the Speaker, Momoh Jimoh. He agreed to resign, signatures were collected, he also signed and the present speaker, Ahmed Umar Alfa, read the motion (which he, Momoh Jimoh, signed) on the floor of the House. Prior to this development, the former speaker had walked the present speaker through the rudiments of speakership and had started introducing him and of course people and entities had started gallivanting and gyrating around the new ‘speaker-to-be’. What happened thereafter was PDP abracadabra and fictional movie, best watched with arms akimbo, mouth open with saliva dripping. Nobody or group is bigger than the constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.

It is based on the aforementioned that right thinking persons and political office holders are already disassociating themselves from the former speaker’s impunity and subversion to democratic ethos and norms and paying solidarity visits to the new speaker.

Outrageous as it may seem, the first set of political office holders who came on these onerous visits are Okehi LGA legislature (from where the former speaker hails from) led by the council leader, Aliyu Ozigi. Ozigi prayed that God will help the speaker in the discharge of his duties. In his response, the reiterated that the state had suffered severe deficit from past administration but it was obvious within the past 30 days that there is certainly a new direction and wind of change blowing through the land. He assured them that the House would reconvene soon and the budget would pass the second reading and they would also fast track all pending bills before the House.

On 2 March, the House reconvened as promised by the speaker with more legislatures in attendance. At this sitting, three new members of the House were sworn in by the clerk of the House. Thereafter, the House adjourned and reconvened on the 7 March, 2016 and 10 March respectively, with yet newer set of legislators in attendance. What this portends is that by the next sitting of the House, over 80 percent of legislatures would be in attendance at the sitting of the House. The question one then begs to ask is: why is the House of Representatives hell bent on truncating the peace that is steadily returning to the House by wanting to take over its proceedings?

In the constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, Section 11(4&5) which addressed the issues and concerns from the House of Representatives in respect of Kogi State House of Assembly, Subsection 5 of the said Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria 1999 as amended states to wit: “For the purposes of subsection(4) of this Section, a House of Assembly shall not be deemed to be unable to perform it functions so long as the House of Assembly can hold a meeting and transact business.” Therefore, the House, in requirement of this subsection holds its meetings and transacts its businesses as witnessed in the last two weeks.

The House was in session last week and this week to issue proclamation adjourning its sitting to Thursday this week, a development that has eluded the House under the leadership of Momoh Jimoh. So it would be a flagrant disregard for the constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria for the House of Representative to want to tow the line of disunity and dishonour, as the House has resolved to take the matter to the court of law.

This is not what is needed in Kogi state at the moment; the House of Representatives should have explored all options, leaving no stone unturned, so as to bring respite to the House through dialogue. What are the possibilities that taking over the House would bring about the much needed decorum? Any further elongated process is unacceptable.

Oluwatoyin, a political critic and social commentator writes from Lokoja