Over one month after the inauguration of the Eighth National Assembly and election of Hon. Yakubu Dogara as the Speaker of the House of Representatives, the Green Chamber has remained in crisis. Former Chairman, House Committee on Finance and spokesman for the Dogara Group, Hon. Abdulmumuni Jibrin Jibrin in this interview with DGossip247 gives reasons why Hon. Femi Gbajabiamila, APC’s candidate for the position, may not make it
The House of Representatives is still enmeshed in a leadership tussle. Can you give us an update on the efforts your party is making to resolve this crisis?
As you are aware, our party, the All Progressives Congress has taken several measures to ensure that we have an amicable resolution of the misunderstanding among ourselves in the House of Representatives and by extension, the National Assembly. The latest of such efforts is the directive by the National Executive Committee of the party where certain committees were constituted to look into the issues.
The one that directly affects us is the committee headed by the immediate past Speaker of the House who is now the Governor of Sokoto State, Alhaji Aminu Tambuwal. He has been mandated to liaise with the two groups in the House namely the Femi Gbajabiamila Group and we in what I will call the Yakubu Dogara Group. But let me also make it very clear that Dogara is the Speaker of the House and therefore, the leader of everyone of us in the green chamber. But for the purpose of dealing with this crisis let us say that there is the Dogara Group.
What has been the outcome of this intervention?
Governor Aminu Tambuwal of Sokoto State has met with Femi Gbajabiamila and his group. Of course, the following day, he met with us and we also had a lengthy meeting. At some point, we had heated arguments and we wish to express our appreciation to the former speaker for tolerating all our actions at that meeting and for being able to stand firm to ensure that certain concessions were made which were completely against the original plan.
We had that before going to the meeting. Shortly after that, we received lots of phone calls. Under normal circumstances we are not supposed to make a public statement on this to allow the process to be consolidated. But because of the various information that are going round, and in order to put the record straight, I have been mandated as the spokesman of the group to make some few comments as regards some of the things that transpired at the meeting.
Of course the details would be made public when the entire process is concluded. We went to the meeting and you’ve always known our position on this matter.
We believe that we did not go against any provisions of the laws of the party or the provisions of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria in electing Hon Yakubu Dogara as speaker and the rest. We also believe that there should be a level playing ground for everyone in terms of the occupation of the principal offices; that has always been our position.
But after a very lengthy meeting with His Excellency, the immediate past speaker and the Governor of Sokoto State, we were able to make a very far-reaching concession and this is to allow for peace to reign in the house. It was very tough and of course the wise counsel of the Governor of Sokoto was on the need for us to make compromises if peace must return to the house. I think that Governor Tambuwal succeeded in convincing us to make concessions.
What exactly did you agree to do?
We agreed on three things. One, we maintain the position that we do not recognise the letter written by the party in quotes and I give you reasons. We have utmost respect for the chairman of the party, but that letter did not pass through all the relevant organs of the party. It was neither approved by the National Working Committee nor the National Executive Council.
Not even the caucus of the party was consulted and it was a product of one or two governors and of course, the National Chairman. Let me maintain the fact that we respect the National Chairman, but we will only respect a letter that is processed through the relevant legal organs of the party.
So, our position is that we do not recognise the existence of such a letter. Secondly, we resolved that the principal officers of the House must be in tandem with principle of equity and federal character as prescribed in the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. The six positions that are usually occupied by the majority party – the Speaker, Deputy Speaker, House Leader, Deputy House Leader, Chief Whip and Deputy Whip must go to the six geo – political zones to reflect the principle of equity and fairness.
To that end, after a very lengthy deliberation, we conceded the position of the House Leader to the Femi Gbajabiamila group and we took this decision bearing in mind that we need peace in this house and we want to get down to work. We took this decision bearing in mind that Nigerians are watching. We are already in the second half of the year and we should be busy with the review of 2015 budget. How much have we made? How far has the budget been implemented?
We need to get ourselves prepared and the executive arm of government also has to get itself prepared for the engagements towards the 2016 fiscal year. We all need to get prepared for the discussions that would form the component of the Medium Term Expenditure Framework. Of course, the MTEF would have to come in in the next few weeks because you need to have extensive deliberations on the MTEF before you talk about the budget.
We are going to have a very loaded year and we need to get these things right because we are part of the APC government and we need to make a good impression with the 2016 budget. We have a lot of work to do and we cannot continue to waste more time talking about positions. We expect the Femi group to accept this concession so that we can move forward.
What if they don’t accept your conditions or concession?
In the event that they do not accept, we have also provided our last position. The only alternative that would be left if for us to be allowed to choose the principal officers of the house in line with the standing rules of the house. In that case, we have to go 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 that he is claiming. Even for the other principal officers, let’s hold elections in line with the standing rules of the house. That is our position. We have to make these clarifications to avoid a situation where the public will be fed with false information.
Do we take it that Hon. Femi Gbajabiamila would automatically become the House Leader?
Well, there is something I failed to mention earlier on and this is very important. While conceding the office of the House Leader to the Femi Gbajabiamila group, we actually added that whoever they choose to nominate for the position must not come from the South -West or the North -East. This is in line with our strong belief in the principles of equity and federal character as enshrined in the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.
We all understand the role of the Deputy Speaker if you go through the Standing Rules of the House and that of the House Leader. It would be so unfair to combine the position of the Deputy Speaker and the House Leader and narrow it to one particular geo- political zone. Let’s go beyond individuals and let’s promote institutions. We need to promote the legislature as an institution. There is no way we can have a Speaker from the North-East and again you give another principal office of the House to the North-East. So we have made this concession but we are being realistic. As it is now, you all know that some zones have already gone to court over this issue. The North- Central is already in court because they are insisting that you cannot deny them having a principal officer in the house. So these are some of the issues we have resolved. We did it in a very patriotic way. We placed national interest at the back of our minds and we hope that this will bring the crisis to an end.
From what you have said, it seems that this crisis still persists because you have in your concession excluded Gbajabiamia, the preferred candidate of your party from the position. Where does that leave the much talked about party supremacy?
I am surprised that you are saying that no progress has been made. I’m sure that you have been following the events right from the time the race for the speakership started up till the day we had the elections. I’m sure you’ve never heard our group saying that we have conceded the position of the Hose Leader to the Gbajabiamila’s group.
This is a step forward and we also expect you in the media to also help diffuse this tension. This is a huge success. It should be headline news that we have conceded the position of House Leader to the Gbajabiamila’s group. It is not a joke; we have actually done it. We are being realistic and that is why we said that in conceding the seat, we should not lose sight of the need to maintain equity, fairness and federal character in terms of the distribution of offices. Yes, President Muhammadu Buhari has always said that the party is supreme but you know that even that statement in itself can be very subjective, and must be viewed from the context in which it was made.
The President did not directly make that statement that it had to do with the letter the party wrote to the House of Representatives and the Senate. I believe that the President made that statement within a wider context of party supremacy. We all agree and we all abide by it but there is no specification in terms of context. I am completely convinced that when the President made that statement, he was not talking about the letter the party sent to the Speaker of the House of Representatives. Don’t also forget that there is also a court injunction stopping the Speaker from reading that letter on the floor of the house.
Your group’s position appears antagonistic to the position of your party. Don’t you think there could be consequences for disobeying the party?
Well, I think that I have said enough in that regard and the question that you should be asking now is whether the said letter sent to the Speaker was approved by the National Working Committee of the party. Was it written in the Consultation with the National Executive Committee of the party?
Was it written after consultation of the National Caucus of the party? Who were those who took the decision to write that letter? I think these are the questions that those who are interested in resolving the crisis should be raising. These are the kind of questions we expect you to ask the leaders of the party.
Like I said earlier, we hold the National Chairman of our party in high esteem but we need to put these issues in proper perspective. I think that we should all be patriotic. The most important thing now is for us to resolve this issue of the house leader. We believe that once you resolve it every other thing will follow.
It does seem that your group does not want to have Gbajabiamila as one of the principal officers. Is that the bottom-line of your group’s position?
No, that is not the case. Please be a bit fair to us. There is no way we are going to look at it that way because Gbajabiamila contributed his own bit in building this institution. In other words, if you really ask me, I would rather say that we are trying to plead with him to place national interest above personal interest. This is the point we are trying to put forward. What should be the priority now? It is national interest and not the individual interest
. I’m sure that Gbajabiamila would have realised by now that it is important for us to have equity, federal character and fairness in the distribution of these positions. As someone who likes to abide by the constitution, I don’t think he will have any qualms accepting our proposal.
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