Dogara Moves To Stop Looming Mass Resignations
In what looks like a fence mending move, the speaker of the House of Representative, Yakubu Dogara on Tuesday, November 3, met the chairmen and deputies of House standing committees.
The House was thrown into another round of crisis when the Speaker announced the composition of 96 committees on October 22. The composition of the committees was marred with criticism especially from members of the All Progressives Congress from the south-west who were not happy that the main opposition party in the House, the Peoples Democratic Party got most of what they described as the grade ‘A’ committees.
Femi Gbajabiamila , the House majority leader had earlier voiced his concerns over the makeup of the committees which he said he was never consulted about before a final decision was made.
Abdulrazak Namdas, the mouthpiece of the House said that the meeting was just a familiarization meeting. He disclosed that the chairmen and their deputies will be inaugurated next Monday, November 9.
So far about three chairmen have resigned their positions in protest. One of them said that he was not consulted before his name was made public.
New Telegraph reports that the meeting which was at the instance of Dogara was meant to appeal to those that were planning to resign their positions to drop the action as “committee appointment is for service and not pecuniary considerations”.
New findings showed that Dogara and Gbajabiamila were not on the same page in regard to the composition of the committees. The majority leader had written a letter to Dogara just a day before the announcement was made.
The letter which was made public yesterday, Tuesday, November 3, had warned against not consulting principal officers prior to the composition of the committees.
The letter read in part: “You would recall that I have on several occasions in the last four weeks met with you both at home and your office to get an understanding and appreciation of what was going on with the composition and appointment of chairmen and deputy chairmen of House committees. I did this because of the incessant rumour that same had been composed.”
In a related development, some members of the APC in the House had reportedly asked Dogara to retrieve the oil and gas sector committee from the PDP.
The members, who were aggrieved over the decision of Dogara to give the PDP committees regarded as ”juicy”, expressed disgust at the speaker’s action.
The House was thrown into another round of crisis when the Speaker announced the composition of 96 committees on October 22. The composition of the committees was marred with criticism especially from members of the All Progressives Congress from the south-west who were not happy that the main opposition party in the House, the Peoples Democratic Party got most of what they described as the grade ‘A’ committees.
Femi Gbajabiamila , the House majority leader had earlier voiced his concerns over the makeup of the committees which he said he was never consulted about before a final decision was made.
Abdulrazak Namdas, the mouthpiece of the House said that the meeting was just a familiarization meeting. He disclosed that the chairmen and their deputies will be inaugurated next Monday, November 9.
So far about three chairmen have resigned their positions in protest. One of them said that he was not consulted before his name was made public.
New Telegraph reports that the meeting which was at the instance of Dogara was meant to appeal to those that were planning to resign their positions to drop the action as “committee appointment is for service and not pecuniary considerations”.
New findings showed that Dogara and Gbajabiamila were not on the same page in regard to the composition of the committees. The majority leader had written a letter to Dogara just a day before the announcement was made.
The letter which was made public yesterday, Tuesday, November 3, had warned against not consulting principal officers prior to the composition of the committees.
The letter read in part: “You would recall that I have on several occasions in the last four weeks met with you both at home and your office to get an understanding and appreciation of what was going on with the composition and appointment of chairmen and deputy chairmen of House committees. I did this because of the incessant rumour that same had been composed.”
In a related development, some members of the APC in the House had reportedly asked Dogara to retrieve the oil and gas sector committee from the PDP.
The members, who were aggrieved over the decision of Dogara to give the PDP committees regarded as ”juicy”, expressed disgust at the speaker’s action.
