Tambuwal ‘will not resign’ as speaker

Lai Mohammed, the national publicity secretary of the All Progressives Congress (APC), says those calling for the removal of Aminu Tambuwal as speaker of the house of representatives do not know the 1999 constitution well.

He said there was no provision in the constitution compelling the speaker of the house to come from the majority.

“For those who say Tambuwal should resign, I want to refer them to the extant laws and constitutional provision of the house,” he told NAN.

“It states that if a person leaves a party on the platform by which he came into the house to another party, he should resign, except where it can be proved that there is a crisis or a faction ‎within his party.

“Even a blind man today knows about the crisis that led to the ousting of the former PDP chairman, Bamanga Tukur; seven governors walked out of their convention.

“It led to the creation of the new PDP, led to 37 honourable members and 15 senators decamping to APC‎, among other reasons. There’s no provision in the constitution that says the speaker must come from the majority but from one of the members. The only way to remove him is when two-thirds of members remove him; so we have no law or moral right on why he should resign as speaker.”

Lai further said that Tambuwal’s emergence as ‎the speaker was based on “his ability to attract followership”, because he was not the preferred candidate.

He said the party was elated about the carpet crossing and was glad to lead the legislative arm of government.

Lai added that the fortunes of the party would improve in terms of followership and development.

The leadership of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) had asked him to do the “honourable” after his defection to the APC.