PDP Reps members scheme Tambuwal’s removal as Speaker

By Sylvester Ugwuanyi on October 30, 2014

Despite that the House of Representatives is currently on recess, Hon. Aminu Tambuwal’s seat as Speaker of the House has become heavily threatened following his defection to the All Progressives Congress, APC, from the ruling Peoples’ Democratic party, PDP. This is as the PDP caucus in the lower chamber of the National Assembly on Wednesday met to plot how the party could regain the leadership of the legislature it lost due to the defection.
However, the lawmakers acknowledged in the meeting, which started late on Tuesday night in Abuja and ended in the wee hours of yesterday, that it would not be an easy ride for them to unseat Tambuwal, in view of the support he enjoys among his colleagues and the inability of PDP members to muster the required two-third majority to force him out as Speaker.
New Telegraph quotes a source privy to deliberations at the PDP House caucus meeting as disclosing that among the options considered was the summoning of an emergency meeting of the House before the December 3 resumption date, supposedly to receive the 2015 budget proposal. It was gathered that reconvening the House before the December 3 was one of the options discussed at the meeting between the PDP National Working Committee (NWC) and members of the PDP in the House as a way of forcing Tambuwal to resign or be impeached.
DailyPost recalls that Tambuwal had adjourned further sittings of the House until December 3 to enable members participate in their parties’ primaries ahead of the 2015 general election. He was smart enough to notify his colleagues of his membership of the APC before hitting the gravel signaling the adjournment of the House. However, the PDP NWC, which swiftly met with party members in the House after Tambuwal announced his defection at plenary on Tuesday, issued a statement calling on the speaker to “do the needful.”
The source explained that it was mulled for President Goodluck Jonathan to write the House that he intends to present the 2015 Appropriation Bill in November to enable the lawmakers to pass it before proceeding on Christmas break. It was calculated that the Speaker would ignore the letter on the pretext that the House was on break, thus allowing PDP lawmakers to cash in on his refusal to collect signatures from their members to get the required one third to reconvene the House. With 188 members in the House, the PDP believes it will be able to collect enough signatures to meet the one-third requirement, which is 120 of the 360-member House.
Although the new House Standing Orders do not make provision for convening an emergency session, the PDP wants to capitalize on the general provision of quorum for plenary sittings to execute its agenda. Order IV Rule 16 (1) states that “the quorum of the House shall not be less than one-third of all the members of the House.”
The source continued: “So many options were tabled at the meeting but members told the leadership of the party (PDP) that it would be difficult to impeach Tambuwal. However, one option that was explored was to try to reopen the House before December 3 to receive the budget proposal. The idea is that the presidency, will in the letter state that since we are going into an election year, it is a matter of urgent national importance that the budget be submitted in November so that it can be passed in December.”