There appears to be no end in sight to the crisis in the House of Representatives over the appointment of principal officers.
This is as the two factions in the crisis have so far been unable to resolve their differences.
However, the Sokoto State governor, Aminu Tambuwal, who heads a reconciliation committee on the crisis told State House Correspondents on Tuesday after a closed-door meeting with President Muhammadu Buhari that he was hopeful that consensus will soon be reached.
But few hours after he stated this, the group loyal to the Speaker, Yakubu Dogara, insisted that their boss’s rival during the Speakership election, Hon. Femi Gbajabiamila, who along with three others, was approved by the APC to become principal officers, cannot fill the position.
Some hours after, Gbajabiamila too kicked against the position of the Dogara group, thereby heralding a stalemate in the yet to be concluded assignment of Tambuwal.
Speaking to journalists on what transpired between the Dogara group and the Tambuwal committee, Hon. Abdulmumini Jibrin, who confirmed THEWILL’s exclusive report after their meeting, said the only privilege they would grant Gbajabiamila is for him to nominate the House Leader.
He said if Gbajabiamila persists in his bid as supported by the APC, then there would be no option but for the House to resort to voting to decide who the majority principal officers would be.
According to Jibrin, “In the event that they do not accept, we also provided that it should be left for us to choose principal officers of the House in line with the standing rules of the House, so we have to come back and hold an election.
“The entire APC members would hold an election to elect the House Leaders,
“If someone says he has 174 members, fine, let’s hold an election and see if he actually has that majority he claims.
“Let’s hold election in line with the standing rules of the House and that is our position.”
But the Gbajabiamila group took a different stance, saying it was not aware that any counter-offer has been made to it after the first meeting with Tambuwal. Instead, they reiterated that they would be sticking to the fact that the party’s decision is supreme.
“The position of the party on Femi Gbajabiamila as the House Leader is non- negotiable,” a statement issued on behalf of the group on Wednesday by Hon. Rufai Chachangi, said.
The Gbajabiamila faction dismissed the zoning formula suggested by Dogara just as it described the purported court case in the same vein as “non justiciable and of no legal consequence.”
Observing that the Tambuwal committee was yet to convene a joint meeting of both groups, the Gbajabiamila group said “any purported decision reeled out to the public in the name of the National Assembly peace pact before such joint meeting is lopsided and not acceptable to the APC Loyalists group.”
The group, therefore, said if peace does not prevail, it would gladly “subscribe to an election among entire members of the APC House Caucus where all members irrespective of zones would exercise their right to elect their principal officers.”
Written by Muhammad Bello.
