*rejects interference in house business
Attempts by the leadership of the governing All Progressives Congress (APC) in Niger State ostensibly in concert with the executive arm of the government to install a preferred stooge as Majority Leader in the one sided House of Assembly has hit a brick wall.
Since the last two quarters of last year, the leadership of the APC in the state had made attempts to have the House of Assembly, which is almost 99% dominated by the APC change the House Majority Leader but their attempts were consumed by rabid reactions from members of the legislature.
Feelers within Minna, but close enough to the powers that be in the APC led administration in the state told our correspondent that the Chairman of the party and the state governor had tinkered with the idea of having a preferred choice as leader of the House who would ”truly stand in the garb for the governor on matters brought to the plenary or to the committees of the House.”
Of the 27 member strong House, the governing All Progressive Congress in the state has 25 members with only two members being members of the opposition party.
Last year, the first move was hatched to have the House Majority Leader replaced by the leadership of the party during one of the party’s stakeholders meetings. The moved was not successful.
Later, the party rejigged it’s strategy and officially wrote a letter to the House asking it to replace the House Majority Leader. Again, the move was scuttled and tactfully rejected by the members of the legislature.
But the leadership of the party did not give up. It continued with it’s subterranean moves. At resumption of the House, the party’s leaders dusted their plan and stormed the House just when it had resumed for business to ask for it’s wishes to be accepted.
It didn’t just send a reminder to the House but asked the Secretary of the party to lead others as pressure bearers. But the members of the House were not to be scared, cajoled or bamboozled.
In unison, they told the Secretary of the party, Mohammed Liman and his entourage who were the emissaries of the party’s Chairman and their paymaster that the House does not take kindly to interference or receive orders from outside.
With that, the stage appears set for a show down between the angry party leadership and the ruffled members of the state legislature who consider the attempt by the party to remove the House Majority Leader as uncalled for.
At the House sitting on Tuesday, the letter from the party, which was signed by it’s Chairman, was read on the floor of the House. It generates rabid reactions from members.
The letter was consequently thrown out by the House, a development which irked the party’s emiseries to the House. In shame and anger, they stormed out of the plenary to report back to those who sent them.
Observers view the latest development as part of the cold war between the party leadership in the state and the legislature which is largely seen as bearing an underhand from above, the powers that be.
Attempts by the party to remove Hon. Nura Garba, the House Majority Leader and replace him with Hon. Isah Dandodo Ibrahim, the member representing Kontagora constituency at the House, (same area where the governor hails from), is seen by many as a clear interference by the party and the executive arm to hoist a stooge as House Leader.
All the members of the legislature voiced out their anger at what they called ‘undue interferences’ in legislative matters of the House.
In throwing out the letter, the lawmakers cited some sections of the House’s Standing Rules which prescribes that ‘Principal Officers of the Assembly should be elected by the lawmakers at plenary.
Observers are waiting to see what step the leadership of the party would come up with after it’s attempts to change one of the principal officers of the House failed.
