Tambuwal bows out of Reps, hands over to Ihedioha

The Speaker of the House of
Representatives, Mr. Aminu
Tambuwal, bowed out on Tuesday
after handing over the leadership
of the legislature to his deputy, Mr.
Emeka Ihedioha, who will round off
the tenure of the House on June 5.
Tambuwal, who is the Governor-
elect for Sokoto State, will be
inaugurated on May 29 as governor.
His decision to transfer power to
Ihedioha ahead of the May 29
handover date was to avoid a
possible constitutional crisis of
taking oath of office for two
separate offices.
While he will be inaugurated as
governor on May 29, his current
tenure as a member of the House
will end on June 6.
Tambuwal, who spoke with
journalists soon after Tuesday’s
sitting of the House, disclosed that
the members agreed at an
executive session that Ihedioha
should preside over the affairs of
the House till June 6.
“My stay here in the House would
have effectively come to an end on
May 29 after I would have been
inaugurated as governor.
“We have to avoid any possible
issues on this, since the
constitution is silent on what
happens when a sitting Speaker
has to move to another office,” he
added.
According to him, the 1999
Constitution does not envisage a
situation where the Speaker will
leave one office for another, while
the oath taken for the current one
is subsisting.
However, he noted that under the
Standing Orders of the House, a
Speaker Pro-tempore was required
to be elected by members to run
the House for any period the
substantive Speaker would not be
available.
But, he explained that the extant
case was different because he
would not return to the House
anymore.
“At our executive session, a
member came up with an
ingenious way of dealing with the
matter on hand, which members
accepted.
“He came up with the idea that the
portion of the House rules in
question should be suspended to
enable the deputy speaker to
continue to preside over the House
instead of electing a new Speaker,”
Tambuwal added.
Tambuwal stated that the other
alternative would have been to
shut down the House before June 6,
but said he was not in support of
such a move.
“I won’t shut down the House. The
House can sit tomorrow ( today),
Thursday and possibly the other
sitting days of next week,” he said.
Meanwhile, one of the contestants
for the speakership of the 8th
Assembly, Mr. Mohammed
Monguno, on Tuesday voluntarily
withdrew from the race.
Monguno, who is from Borno State,
said that he was stepping down to
back the candidature of House
Minority Leader, Mr. Femi
Gbajabiamila, one of the frontline
contenders.
Monguno added that he would
instead join Gbajabiamila for the
position of deputy speaker.
Part of a statement he issued in
Abuja, read, “After broad
consultations and thoughtful
consideration, I have decided not
to run for the office of the Speaker
in the 8th Assembly.
“Instead, I give my full
endorsement to my friend and
colleague, Hon. Femi Gbajabiamila,
who I believe has the requisite
qualification to lead the 8th
Assembly in the onerous task of
addressing the important and
pressing needs of the citizens of
this nation.
“I will instead be running for the
Deputy Speaker position on a joint
ticket with Hon. Gbajabiamila.”
The PUNCH had long reported that
Gbajabiamila and Monguno were
working toward forming an alliance
for a joint ticket.