▪︎Invitation, not necessary-Gbajabiamila, Doguwa
▪︎Thunderous shouts of “No”, “No” by Borno lawmakers
▪︎As House abruptly goes into executive session
Members of the House of Representatives were divided at Tuesday plenary on whether or not to invite President Muhammadu Buhari to appear before them and offer explanation on the true security situation of the country.
An earlier circulated motion had prayed for the invitation of the president.
But the motion eventually moved by Hon. Satomi Ahmed on behalf of other 10 Borno State lawmakers on the floor prayed the president to, among other things, declare a State of emergency on security matters.
But the motion as presented didn’t go down well with another Borno lawmaker, Hon. Ahamdu Jaha who relied on Order 6, Rule 1 of the House to say that the original motion to which all the lawmakers agreed on was to call on the President to address them on the security situation especially in the north east region.
He, therefore, amended the prayers of the motion.
According to him, “my amendment is that Mr President should be invited to come and explain the security situation in the country especially in the northeast.”
The amendment got the support of the House.
However, the Speaker of the House, Rep Femi Gbajabiamila said it was not necessary, stressing that the State of emergency prayer sufficed.
This was however rejected by the House.
Similarly, the majority leader of the House, Ado Doguwa said that security issues could not be discussed openly, pleading for the understanding of his colleagues not to summon the president.
His contribution was however greeted with a thunderous shout of “No!”, “No!”, “No!”
Noticing the reactions of the lawmakers, the Speaker called for executive session to resolve the matter.
“Hon. Colleagues, I am a little bit disappointed with a lot of these “no!”, “no!” This is not the spirit with which we started this 9th assembly.
“We will go into executive session to resolve this matter.”
The House had yet to reconvene at the time of filing this report.
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