•Ikenga Ugochinyere
The lawmaker representing Ideato North/Ideato South Federal Constituency of Imo State, Ikenga Ugochinyere, yesterday lost the bid to become the House Minority Leader.
This followed the adoption of a motion by the House that first-time lawmakers cannot become principal officers, reports The Nation.
Ugochinyere, a first-time member of the Green Chamber, had been nominated by about 60 members of the minority caucus to become the Minority Leader following the relinquishing of the position by Kingsley Chinda who resigned the position to become the governorship candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in Rivers State.
It was learnt that the Peoles Democratic Party (PDP) caucus leader in the House, Fred Agbedi (PDP, Bayelsa), who is one of the oldest members of the House, is highly favoured by the House leadership to clinch the Minority Leader’s position.
During yesterday’s plenary, the House adopted a motion seeking to clarify the provisions of the House Rules on the eligibility for principal officers of the House.
In his motion on the need for a precise definition of the provisions of Order Seven, Rule 15 of the House of Representatives, Babajimi Benson (APC, Lagos) drew the attention of his colleagues to the provisions which provide that “only members with cognate legislative experience as members of the House of Representatives shall be eligible for appointment as principal officers of the House”.
He explained that global parliamentary best practices rule out first-term parliamentarians from holding principal offices and reserve principal offices positions for experienced legislators to promote institutional memory, deepen understanding of legislative processes, and enhance competence in constitutional interpretation and intergovernmental relations.
Benson also drew the attention of the House to the fact that the Senate recently defined “cognate legislative experience” to mean “senators who have completed at least one full four-year term”.
The lawmaker added that those with multiple previous terms must have served in the immediate past Assembly.
He argued that there was the need to prioritise institutional memory, deepen parliamentary stability and continuity, legislative experience, minimise avoidable turbulence and promote matured representation in the comity of international parliamentary associations.
In view of his position, the resolve to “define ‘Cognate Legislative Experience’ as contained in Order Seven, Rule 15 of the Standing Orders of the House as meaning – “Members who have completed at least one full four-year term and that there is no other definition to the term ‘cognate legislative experience’ other than that”.
But in a Point of Order, Solomon Bob (APC, Rivers) drew the attention of the House to the provisions of Order Seven, Rule One, which gives the Speaker the express power to interpret the House Rules.
Bob noted that there was no need for the motion because it implied that the Speaker was ceding his powers to the House.
But Speaker Tajudeen Abbas ruled that he decided to allow the House interpret the House Rules so that members could be seen to have spoken with one voice.
The definition was unanimously adopted by members at plenary without any opposing voice.
A member of the House had told The Nation that they were working on arriving at a consensus on who should be the Minority Leader following the controversies surrounding the nomination of Ugochinyere by some members.
The nomination has generated some controversy with House Deputy Spokesman Phillip Agbese alleging that his signature on the document nominating Ugochinyere for the Minority Leader position.
Speaker Abbas has also met with members of the Minority Caucus with a view to resolving the leadership issues within the caucus without three of the four members.
The positions of the Minority Leader, the Minority Whip, and the Deputy Minority Leader became vacant recently with only the Deputy Minority Whip, George Ozodinobi, acting as the Minority Leader.
