People’s Democratic Party Chieftain, Adeseye Ogunlewe’s reaction to the defection of the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Aminu Tambuwal, to the opposition party, is that of worry at the possibility of such defection causing trouble in the National Assembly.
The Former Minister, who was the guest of Sunrise Daily on Channels Television, believes that Nigeria might be in for a rough time ahead of the 2015 general elections, especially as political parties conclude the nomination of candidates for different elective positions by December 3.
“If majority of the members that are in the House of Reps and Senate fail to be nominated to contest election, there will be problem because they will not have anything to lose again, other than to cause crisis in the National Assembly again.
“But if the two parties manage it well and allow them to continue – the majority of them – they will have the interest of Nigeria at heart and maintain peace in the National Assembly.
“After December 3, there will be an election. If Tambuwal is elected as Governor of Sokoto State, he will behave in the interest of Nigeria in the House of Reps. If he loses, he has no stake again and things will be more turbulent.
“The National Assembly is so critical in the running of government in Nigeria. Almost everything can be approved and the government will move on,” he warned.
The former senator posited that with Tambuwal acting as Speaker for the rest of his tenure, after having lost his purported governorship bid “he can do a lot of damage because he may never be able to come into the limelight again just like other past speakers have problem; from (Salisu) Buhari to (Ghali) Na’Abba, Aminu Maisari and (Dimeji) Bankole too”
Asked to explain the logic behind his postulation of a the possibility of crisis in the House, he said, “PDP needs 240 members out of the 360 to impeach him…its difficult because the opposition will also not want it to happen.
“APC will not want you to pick out of their members to make up your 240, PDP will like to make the 240 and there will be confusion.”
PDP Nomination Form
Ogunlewe also responded to allegations by some members of the PDP who were supposedly denied the rights to acquire the presidential nomination form after having paid for it.
He said that this was “normal when you have a President sitting, you give him the first offer of refusal. Once he accepts to run I don’t think the party has the rights to deny anybody of contesting against the sitting president”.
He noted that printing the nomination forms is “a waste of money, waste of time” explaining that “to go over the primaries is a lot of money” and the party is supreme, adding that “if you’re a member of the party you subscribe to the constitution of the party and the leadership”.
His attention was drawn to a seemingly fraudulent nature of the transaction, whereby monies were collected from the aspirants with receipts to show and the party turned round to say it had only printed one form.
Ogunlewe referred to this as part of political gimmicks.
“They only published account numbers where any aspirant could pay into. So they just went to pay there. Who sponsored them? Where did they attend their own ward meetings?
“If you have been attending your ward meetings, your LGA meetings, your state meetings, the leadership there would have told you that you don’t need to go and pay.”
