Defection: Plot to Remove Tambuwal as Speaker Thickens

This comes as the leadership of the PDP from the North-West zone is also said to be organizing another crucial meeting today (Sunday) with the party’s caucus and its top members in the House of Representatives.Both meetings are part of the political intrigues and power-play trailing Tambuwal’s defection to the opposition All Progressive Congress (APC). […]

This comes as the leadership of the PDP from the North-West zone is also said to be organizing another crucial meeting today (Sunday) with the party’s caucus and its top members in the House of Representatives.
Both meetings are part of the political intrigues and power-play trailing Tambuwal’s defection to the opposition All Progressive Congress (APC).
Sunday Trust checks revealed that the meeting slated for tomorrow will be a follow-up on a similar one held in the wake of the defection by the House of Representatives’ speaker. Those expected to be in attendance at the crucial meeting are deputy speaker of the House of Representatives, Emeka Ihedioha, the PDP caucus in the house, as well as all the 205 members elected on the platform of the party.
Sunday Trust learnt that the ruling party to decide the fate of Tambuwal. During is considering several options an earlier meeting, party stakeholders in attendance were said to have been requested to return to their drawing boards and come up with suggestions on how best to handle the matter. This was premised on the thinking that a House of Representatives presided by Tambuwal, after reconvening from the five weeks recess, would no longer be working in the interest of the ruling party.
With seven months left to the end of his four-year tenure, the Speaker is currently experiencing his harshest political winter, having come under pressure from his former party, the PDP, to resign his position and vacate his seat as a member of parliament, following his defection to the opposition APC.
Announcing his defection at plenary, Tambuwal said he reached the decision based on the crisis in the Sokoto State chapter of the PDP. Perhaps, in order to douse tension and stave off a rancorous plenary session, the Speaker, in an unusual manner, waited till the end of sitting on Tuesday before throwing his bombshell. “Based on the provision of the 1999 constitution and having regards to the development of PDP in my own state, Sokoto State, I hereby announce my membership of the All Progressives Congress (APC),” he said.
Although his announcement was greeted with applause, by some members of the opposition APC present at plenary, some PDP members were unhappy with the scenario, even as the lawmakers proceeded on a five-week break to return on December 3.
Tambuwal’s decision did not go down well with the high and mighty in the hierarchy of the PDP, to the extent that the ruling party immediately called for his resignation from the position, saying that he should vacate his seat.
National publicity secretary of the PDP, Olisa Metuh, said Tambuwal lacked the moral ground to remain the speaker, having ditched “the majority party in the house.”
“The National Working Committee (NWC) of the Peoples Democratic Party met with PDP leaders in the House of Representatives concerning the defection of the speaker. After a thorough consideration of the matter, the NWC came to a conclusion that the Speaker, as a responsible elected officer, knows full well what is needful and honourable of him, since his new party is in the minority. We are not unmindful of the fact that Tambuwal became Speaker on the platform of the PDP as the political party with the majority of seats in the House of Representatives and that this incontrovertible fact has not changed,” he said.
Chairman of the PDP Governors’ Forum and Akwa Ibom State governor, Godswill Akpabio, said: “For me, we had always suspected that the Speaker of the House of Representatives was in name a PDP member but in action, an opposition party member. So, what has happened is a culmination of what we had suspected. I, therefore, expect that being a honourable member, which he is, he knows the right thing to do; that he was elected on the platform of the PDP and today he has defected to the opposition, and there is no crisis or division in PDP. So, the law is very clear and the constitution is very clear.”
Also calling for Tambuwal’s resignation, the party’s national secretary Professor Wale Oladipo, described the speaker’s action, thus: “Good riddance! He is a nomadic politician, who worked against the interest of his party to emerge as Speaker.”
Reacting to such calls, the house had on Wednesday, through its deputy spokesman Rep Victor Afam Ogene (APGA, Anambra), sounded a warning to all those trying to “regulate” how its procedures should be followed.
“Concerning calls for Mr Speaker to step down from the position which his colleagues freely elected him to on June 6, 2011, we wish to reaffirm – even with the pains of almost sounding monotonous – that the speakership of the House of Representatives, or indeed, any other national elective position, belongs to the generality of Nigerians, and not the political platforms upon which such leaders emerge.
“It is in the light of the foregoing that the House wishes to appeal to those who seek to ‘regulate its procedure’ from outside its hallowed chambers to have a rethink, as the nation’s constitution, the standing orders of the House and precedents – as in the speakership of the late Rt. Hon. Edwin Ume-Ezeoke in the Second Republic on a minority platform – have all provided answers to what would have otherwise been a knotty political issue,” he said.
Barely 48 hours after his defection, the Nigeria Police withdrew the security details attached to the speaker on the orders of the acting Inspector General of Police, Suleiman Abba.
A statement by the Force spokesman, acting Commissioner of Police (CP) Emmanuel Ojukwu, premised the order on Section 68 (1) (g) of the 1999 Constitution, as amended.
“In view of the recent defection by the Right Honourable Aminu Waziri Tambuwal, CFR, the Speaker of the House of Representatives of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, from the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) to the All Progressive Congress (APC), and having regard to the clear provision of Section 68(1) (g) of the 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria as amended, the Nigeria Police Force (NPF) has redeployed its personnel attached to his office,” said the statement.
Section 68 (1) (g) states that a member should vacate his seat upon defecting to another political party, unless if there is a clear division in his former party.
However, Tambuwal, who was “shocked” and “amazed” by the order, said through his spokesman, Malam Imam Imam, that the police action was an attempt to expose him to danger.
“The office of the Hon Speaker House of Representatives, Rt. Hon Aminu Waziri Tambuwal has received with shock and amazement the statement issued by the Nigerian Police Force Headquarters, justifying the withdrawal of Police security personnel attached to the Hon Speaker, by the acting Inspector-General of Police.
“The implication of the Inspector-General of Police’s statement is that as sanction for this alleged constitutional breach, he has removed Rt Hon Aminu Waziri Tambuwal from office of Speaker, House of Representatives. As the number four citizen in the hierarchy of protocol in the country, the Speaker is entitled to security protection by the security agencies. Therefore, we see the action of the acting Inspector General of Police as not only a contempt of the court, but a ploy to bring harm to the person of Rt Hon Aminu Waziri Tambuwal,”Imam said, adding that what the IG did had no basis in law, including the 1999 Constitution which he has cited.
Going by precedents, analysts say the PDP may not just stop at calling on the Speaker to step down and vacate the House or withdraw his security details, but may likely challenge him in court just the way they did when 37 of their members joined the APC last December.
At that time the party had approached Tambuwal to declare the seats of the 37 lawmakers vacant, but he refused, which was why they resorted to court action. In March, a Federal High Court ruled that the 37 lawmakers had no moral ground to remain in the house and urged them to vacate their seats.
Although the lawmakers had since appealed that ruling, there is another case on the matter in the court, awaiting judgment. Indications that the PDP may opt for court action against Tambuwal emerged on Wednesday when President Goodluck Jonathan met with some governors of the party at the State House to discuss development.
Present at the meeting were PDP national chairman Adamu Mu’azu, governors Akpabio of Akwa Ibom, Sullivan Chime of Enugu, Gabriel Suswam of Benue, Ibrahim Dankwambo of Gombe and Seriake Dickson of Bayelsa. Minister of Justice Mohammed Bello Adoke was said to have been dragged to the meeting to advise the party on the constitutionality of Tambuwal’s defection and the next line of action.
Another option is that the party may instruct its members in the House to remove the Speaker, since it still maintains the majority. The PDP has 188 members, while APC has 160. But analysts say this may not be feasible because should the PDP opt for an impeachment, it does not have the numbers to do so, as it requires at least 240 members to sign a removal notice and successfully impeach the speaker.

APC Reps will resist move to impeach Tambuwal
Even as the hierarchy of the PDP continues with subtle moves to edge out Tambuwal, some members of the opposition APC in the House of Representatives have vowed that those angling for the removal of Speaker Aminu Waziri Tambuwal would not succeed, saying they would strongly resist any such move. They said they would not fold their arms and see the parliament being rubbished by what they termed ‘undemocratic people.’
This came in the wake of an alleged directive given to Deputy Speaker Emeka Ihedioha by the Presidency to pressurize Tambuwal to convene the House within one week or face impeachment. The directive was said to have followed a meeting the presidency had with Ihedioha, House Leader Mulikat Akande-Adeola and her deputy Leo Ogor on Thursday.
Sunday Trust learnt that the national leadership of the PDP had also convened a meeting with PDP members in the House to be held tomorrow (Monday) at the party’s national headquarters, in continuation of its plot to unseat Tambuwal.
Reacting to the Presidency’s alleged directive, Rep Aliyu Sani Madaki (APC, Kano) said they would not allow Tambuwal to be impeached, because he has not breached any constitutional provision. He said: “It’s neither in our constitution nor the House Rules for the Presidency or any other agency to tell us how to conduct the affairs of the House. The Presidency telling PDP to do anything as regards how the House is run is, to put it mildly, the height of executive rascality, which must and will be resisted by all lovers of democracy. This fight is not about the Speaker or even members of the House of Reps but our democracy.”
Another APC lawmaker from Kano, Rep Aminu Suleiman, said the action was “another show of complete ignorance to the workings of democracy.”
“Nigerians have made the greatest mistake of giving a job to someone whose capacity is not more than to manage a local government not bigger than Otouke. We have sinned before God and that is why we’re being punished with bad leadership. I pray God to forgive our sins and restore to us a leadership that will have mercy on us,” he said. The APC lawmakers had condemned Thursday’s withdrawal of Tambuwal’s security details and promised to take action as soon as they reconvene from their break.
Also commenting, a PDP lawmaker who did not want to be named remarked: “If it’s true, then our leaders are taking things too far. No matter what, he (Tambuwal) remains our Speaker.” Another PDP lawmaker said although he was not aware of any such move, he would not be surprised “since they have already withdrawn the Speaker’s security details. I think this is an abuse of democratic tenets,” he said.
But when contacted, spokesman to Ihedioha, Oke Epia said he was not aware of the matter.

Lawyers berate IGP as Tambuwal heads to court
As Speaker Aminu Tambuwal heads to court to challenge attempts to declare his seat vacant, as well as the removal of his security details, some lawyers have berated the acting Inspector General of Police for issuing the order.
Tambuwal and his new party, the All Progressive Congress, APC, on Friday dragged the Federal Government and six others before the Federal High Court sitting in Abuja, over attempt to declare his seat vacant and withdrawal of his security aides.
In the suit filed at the registry of the court, through his counsel, Jubrin Okutepa, a senior advocate, the Speaker wanted the court to declare that the attempt to declare his seat vacant as a member and Honourable Speaker was unlawful and unconstitutional.
Barrister Tontu Dorcan, a lecturer at the Nigerian Law School said that the withdrawal of the security details of the  Speaker without any order of the court was ‘ultra-vires’ the powers of the IGP.
He argued that the IGP is not a court and cannot declare the office of the Speaker vacant. He said citing Section 68 (1) (G) 1999 Constitution to justify the IGP’s of declaring the Speaker’s seat vacant, cannot be the correct position of the law.
Another lawyer who spoke on condition of anonymity blamed the IGP, saying that he was intolerant and lacked understanding of the provisions of the constitution. His words: “The job of the police force is not to interpret the law but to implement the law, subject to decisions that are reached by the court. By so doing, the NPF has constituted itself into a court to determine when a person ceases to be a Speaker. It is unfortunate that in a country where we have sworn to uphold the constitution, the head of this administration has allowed impunity to reign unabated. Nigerians cannot be taken for a ride for too long in this matter.”