There are strong indications that the House of Representatives may take over the legislative functions of the Kogi State House of Assembly if ongoing reconciliatory efforts fail.
Section 92(2c) of the 1999 Constitution (as amended) empowers the House to do so.
In its bid to resolve the crisis, the House during Tuesday plenary session, constituted a 10-member fact-finding delegation to Kogi State to ascertain the unconstitutional removal of the speaker, Momoh Jimoh, along with 14 other members.
Recall that the 14 deposed members in a petition dated February 17, 2016, titled: ‘Act of impunity by Governor of Kogi State, Alhaji Yahaya Bello and five members of the Kogi State House of Assembly’, called for the intervention of the leadership of the House of Representatives.
The delegation chaired by Pally Iriase, deputy majority whip, is to “look into the affairs of the Kogi State House of Assembly with the aim of restoring the House to sanity and to ensure adherence to the rule of law therein.”
The resolution of the House was sequel to the passage of a motion of urgent national importance by Sunday Karimi (PDP-Kogi), who described the impeachment of the Speaker and other lawmakers as illegality.
“Section 92(2c) of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria 1999 stipulates that the Speaker or Deputy Speaker of to the State Assembly shall vacate office if he is removed from office by a resolution of the House of Assembly by the votes of not less than two-thirds majority of the members.
“In Kogi State, there are a total number of 25 members of the State House of Assembly, but five of them had their elections nullified at the court of Appeal and the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC is yet to conduct a fresh election in the state constituencies.
“Accordingly, only 20 members are are currently validly elected in the House of Assembly and two-third of Twenty (20) is at least 13 members.”
Karimi argued that the current Governor of the State, Yahaya Bello was alleged by the remaining 15 members to have earlier threatened them to remove the Speaker, Momoh Jimoh ” and appoint his assign as the Speaker instead.”
Member who were unanimous in supporting the motion included: Femi Gbajabiamila, Majority Leader; Nnena Elendu-Ukeje, Rasak Atunwa, Sunday Adepoju, Tajudeen Yusuf and Edward Pwajok.
In his remarks, Gbajabiamila, who noted that the current administration would not tolerate the impunity of the past, urged the House to stand against gross violation of the constitution as it did in the cases of Ekiti, Rivers and Oyo State Houses of Assembly.
He said: “the law is clear on how to impeach, the constitution is for Nigeria and Kogi state is part of Nigeria.
“The National Assembly must make it clear that this must never happen again.This House must exile this sort of politics for the sake of democracy and good governance.”
While ruling, Speaker Yakubu Dogara while ruling, directed the committee to report back to the House within one week in a bid to avert a constitutional crisis.
