The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), says its elected senators and members of the House of Representatives are constitutionally eligible and can seek election into any presiding office of both chambers of the National Assembly.
National Publicity Secretary of the party, Kola Ologbondiyan, said this in a statement on Tuesday.
Ologbondiyan further stated that the position of the President of the Senate, the Speaker of the House of Representatives as well as the Deputy Senate President and the Deputy Speaker are not the exclusive preserves of any political party, but a constitutional right of every elected lawmaker in both chambers.
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He, therefore, described it as laughable that President Muhammadu Buhari and the factional National Chairman of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Adams Oshiomhole, “posture as if the presiding offices and Committee Chairmanship in the National Assembly are exclusive rights of the APC”.
“President Buhari and Oshiomhole should wake up to the fact that the National Assembly belongs to no political party but to all Nigerians, who exercise their control through their elected representatives.
“For emphasis, Section 50 of the 1999 Constitution (as amended) is clear in providing that “There shall be:- (a) a President and a Deputy President of the Senate, who shall be elected by the members of that House from among themselves; and (b) a Speaker and a Deputy Speaker of the House of Representatives, who shall be elected by the members of that House from among themselves.
“Section 92 (1) makes the same provision for the election of the Speaker and Deputy Speaker of State House of Assembly,” he said.
Speaking further, Ologbondiyan reminded President Buhari and Oshiomhole that “the APC had in the past benefited from the provisions of section 50, with the defection of the then Speaker of the House of Representatives, Rt. Hon. Aminu Tambuwal from the PDP to the APC, in October 2014, without relinquishing the speakership of the House to the PDP; a development that was applauded by President Buhari, as the then-opposition leader as well as the APC, through it’s then National Publicity Secretary, Lai Mohammed.
“In fact, the former Minority Leader of the House, Hon. Femi Gbajabiamila, echoed the Constitutional provision that the constitution requires only that the Speaker or Deputy Speaker of the House of Representatives shall be elected by members of that House from among themselves”.
The party also gave other instances of Hon. Terkimbi Ikyange and Hon. Peter Azi, who according to them in 2015, were elected Speakers of the Benue and Plateau State Houses of Assembly respectively, though their party, the APC, was a minority in both Houses.
Ologbondiyan, therefore, stated that the PDP does not only have a constitutional say in the process of the emergence of the leadership of the 9th National Assembly but will, as a matter of constitutional right, field candidates into presiding offices of both chambers, if need be.
