Speakership: Kogi lawmakers threaten to elect factional officers

The crisis rocking the newly-inaugurated Kogi State House of Assembly took a dangerous dimension on Sunday as the All Progressives Congress lawmakers in the Assembly threatened to elect another Speaker.

The APC lawmakers had on Thursday staged a walk-out to protest against the announcement of some of their colleagues as principal officers of the Assembly.

Trouble started shortly after Governor Idris Wada inaugurated the new Assembly when a member representing Igalamela/Odolu constituencies, Mr. Friday Sani of the Peoples Democratic Party, read out nominees for the positions of Speaker, Deputy Speaker, Majority Leader and other principal officers.

Though the member representing Ankpa 1, Ibrahim Abdumumuni of the APC, raised counter-nomination, he was allegedly ignored by the clerk of the House.

The   APC lawmakers in the Assembly consequently walked out and boycotted the election of the principal officers.

The APC lawmakers said they staged the walk-out from the chamber as the list read by Sani was allegedly prepared from the Government House to elect those described as government stooges.

But the remaining lawmakers had gone ahead to elect Momoh Lawal as their Speaker. They also elected other principal officers.

But on Sunday the APC legislators told journalists in Lokoja, the Kogi State capital, that they would elect their own Speaker and other principal officers on Monday (today) if a fresh election was not conducted to elect a new speaker.

Mumuni said the election of Thursday was a rape on democracy and was not acceptable to the APC lawmakers.

He said, “We want to let the world know that we don’t have principal officers in Kogi State House of Assembly. We don’t have speaker, the election of Momoh Lawal was a mess and a rape on democracy, we cannot take it and it cannot stand. We are still insisting on due process, what happened last week on the floor of the House was an act of gangsters and we shall follow this to a logical conclusion.

“What all the APC members are saying is that due process must be followed, the constitution must be followed; there must be nominations and election before electing a speaker and other principal officers of the House.”

Lawal, the new Speaker, however described the walk-out by the opposition legislators as premeditated and an ill-conceived plan to frustrate the activities of the Peoples Democratic Party.

He also described the threat by the APC lawmakers, who are in the minority, to form a parallel House as undemocratic.

“It is not wise for the new assembly to start having problem because some members wanted to have their ways. We need to work together as a team so that at the end of our tenure we will be able to accomplish our legislative activities for the benefit of the electorate that gave us the mandate,” he said.