2 House of Reps members resigns from committe.

The crisis in the House of Representatives over the appointment of chairpersons and deputy chairpersons of the Standing Committees assumed a new dimension yesterday as Deputy Speaker Yussuff Lasun stopped a member, Sunday Adepoju (Oyo, APC) from resigning his position as Deputy Chairman of the Committee on Special Duties on the floor. But he could not stop two lawmakers from quitting their committees. Adepoju, who came under a Point of Order citing his privilege, was stopped by Hon. Lasun, who presided over plenary, when he started by thanking the House leadership for his appointment.

The Deputy Speaker, sensing where the lawmaker was headed, ruled him out of order, insisting the issue he raised wasn’t an urgent one, adding that it had in fact, been “overtaken by events”. But another lawmaker, Aliyu Madaki (Dala) would have none of it as he tried to save Adepoju, reiterating his rights under privileges. Madaki said that the Deputy Speaker was only preventing the evil day. He disclosed that there still would be resignations. He noted that five lawmakers planned to reject their appointments as chairmen on the floor. He also said a member he chose not to name had already sent his letter of resignation to the Speaker.

He said, “today (yesterday), five people were supposed to resign. Two people have already done this. One was on the floor and another has written the Speaker signifying that he doesn’t want the committee assigned him but the letter has not been read. “Today, some people planned to stand up and say, ‘thank you for this, but I don’t want it’. And I don’t see anything wrong with this”. It was gathered that South-West lawmakers met in Abuja on Wednesday  over the sharing of committees and it was agreed that the region was shortchanged. This is even as there was an agreement to allow those wishing to reject their committees to do so. Adepoju’s action, a source said, was a fallout of this meeting.

Hon. Garba Datti Muhammed (Sabon Gari) had on Tuesday rejected  his appointment as chairman of the Committee on Solid Minerals Development. The lawmaker, who stated that the sharing of committees was unfair to the ruling APC said it was wrong for the leadership to resort to different means to stop people from resigning when it was their choice to do so. Adepoju insisted that he would not rescind his decision to resign. He said though he was stopped from reading his resignation letter at plenary, he submitted the same to the Speaker. “It’s very true that I wanted to resign and I still stand by this decision,” he said.