‘Gbaja reps’ boycott inauguration of committees

Some loyalists of Femi Gbajabiamila, majority leader of the house of representatives, boycotted the inauguration of standing committees of the house on Monday, faulting the distribution formula.

Speaking at the end of a meeting that lasted more than six hours, Musa Adar (Sokoto-APC) rejected the distribution and accused Yakubu Dogara, speaker of the house, of favouring opposition parties.

Adar, who spoke on behalf of his colleagues, said the composition of the chairmen and deputy chairmen of the committees, was a “clear manifestation of the maginalisation of the All Progressives Congress (APC)”.

According to him, in the 7th assembly, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), which was the majority, got 71 per cent share of the committees, while minority parties got 26 of the 89 committees.

Adar wondered why there would be even distribution between the APC, which is the majority in the 8th assembly, and minority parties.

“No legislature in the world has ever shared committees on 50:50 basis between the majority and the minority,” he said.

“There must be clear-cut margin between majority and minority parties as was done in previous assemblies.”

He alleged that the committees were shared in a manner calculated at sabotaging the majority, “with the ultimate goal of rolling back the electoral victory of our party”.

Adar said committees on petroleum, works, gas, foreign affairs, banking, information technology, aviation, ports and waterways, which were crucial “to the success of President Muhammadu Buhari’s change agenda”, were given to the PDP.

“What is the motive behind such undemocratic move? Is it to derail the change agenda of President Buhari to ease their ungodly marriage with PDP ahead of 2019?’’ he asked.

Aliyu Madaki, Musa Adar, Ayo Omidiran, Phillip Shaibu, Sunday Adepoju and 20 other lawmakers attended the meeting.

However, Mohammed Monguno, Samil Sulieman and Rufai Chanchangi, who were also present at the meeting, participated at the inauguration ceremony as chairmen of agriculture and solid minerals, and deputy chairman of customs and excise duties respectively.

While inaugurating the committees, Dogara charged the chairmen “to hit the ground running”.

“Some commentators have decried the large number of committees as being unwieldy and non-cost effective. This criticism even though, apparently well intentioned, misses the point,” he said.

“Experience gained from the operation of committees since 1999, shows that the functions and mandates of some committees are very wide indeed and cannot be effectively supervised and over sighted by a single committee.

“For instance, the house split the committee on education into two, namely: basic education and services, and tertiary education and services.

“The old committee on education had a mandate to oversee the budget and policy issues of the following institutions.”

Earlier, in a letter to Dogara, Gbajabiamila had expressed reservations for not being consulted in the formation process of leadership of the committees.